Wolf, Joan (26 page)

"Aye. I mean it." She smiled at him and when he reached out for her again she raised her face.

He kissed her passionately and Van put her arms around him and held him tightly. His touch awoke no sexual feeling in her, only an endless tolling sorrow for the warm flesh so close to her own that tomorrow might be cold and still.

It was Alan who stepped away first. His eyes were golden, his breath coming hard. "I love you," he said in Gaelic.

"Ailein, Ailein, Ailein," she replied in the same language, "I love you too." And she did, if not in quite the way he wanted.

He looked down at her, his eyes devouring her face. Then, reluctantly, "I cannot stay, Van. There is much to be done before the morning.

She nodded, unable to speak.

"I wish we had a minister here right now," he said with barely concealed violence.

She would have to tell him about Edward, she thought. She could not marry him without telling him the truth of that. But not now. "After the battle there will be time enough," she said, and hoped devoutly that she spoke the truth.

She sat for a long time after Alan had left, staring sightlessly into the fire. She had sent her men into battle before, but this, she knew, was different. This time they would not all be coming back. She sat on until her brother arrived home, thinking and planning, trying to foresee all the possibilities.

Niall was surprised to see her still up. He yawned and sat down on the sofa across from her, lounging on his spine.

"Dhé," he said. "What a day this has been."

Van had been thinking very hard for the last hour. "Niall," she said to her brother now, "if you have to take to the heather, remember the cave at the head of the loch."

He sat up, his attention arrested. The cave Van referred to was one they had found as children. It was carved into the rock of the mountain and screened from view by a waterfall. To their knowledge, no one else knew of it. "If the worst befalls," she continued steadily, "I will take Mother home to Morar. I can get provision out to the cave by boat."

Two pairs of darkly lashed light eyes met and held, "I will remember that, my sister."

"Niall..." Her voice was not as steady as she had hoped it would be. She took a deep breath and tried again. "Father thinks he is going to die," she said for the second time that night.

Like Alan, he made no attempt to allay her fears; they were Highland and took premonitions very seriously. "I will do my best to bring him back, Van," he said at last.

"Dhé." Van's face was stark. "What will Mother do should anything befall Father?"

"Mother is stronger than you think," Niall said firmly.

Van's fine lips thinned and set. "I wish to God the prince had never come."

"You don't mean that," Niall replied, as Alan had before. "Nor would Father agree with you. He is our prince, and if we must die for him, then that is our privilege." He meant every word of it.

Van smiled a little bitterly. "Women regard these matters differently from men," she said, and for the first time realized that this was true.

He held out his hand. "Come and sit next to me," he said. "We are both of us lonely this night, I think."

She changed her seat and he put his arm around her shoulder. They sat for a long time in silence, until the fire burned out, the two similar black heads close together, the two fine-boned dark faces quiet and very grave.

There was no peace for Frances that night. Alasdair's lovemaking had been long and slow and lingering, as if he wanted to touch and memorize every part of her, as if he knew he would never touch her like this again. As if he knew he were saying good-bye.

The worst anguish of all was her own helplessness. There was nothing she could do to stop him. But I cannot live without you, her heart cried out to him silently. Alasdair, I cannot. I cannot.

He murmured to her, and called her love names, and the anguish rose even higher in her heart.

He went to sleep and she lay awake and stared at the partially open window. She tried not to be restless; he needed his sleep this night. Finally she could bear lying motionless no more and got out of the bed.

He woke a few minutes later, sensing her absence. He looked around and saw her standing in front of the window in the darkness, her head pressed against the glass.

"Frances," he said. "Do not."

She heard his voice, heard the pleading in it. She wiped the tears from her face with her fingers before she turned around. She could not let go now. She could not let him leave with his mind full of fear for her.

"I'm all right," she said shakily. "I will be all right."

"Come back to bed, m'eudail. It's cold."

She crawled in next to his warmth and lay against the hard strength of his body. His arms enfolded her.

He spoke over her head. "Frances. In the future it may be necessary for you to remember you are English. You have family with some... influence. You may find it necessary to call upon them."

She knew, without asking, that he did not mean she would need help for him.

"I will remember, Alasdair." She drew a deep breath. "And Van and I will take care of the clan."

He held her closer. "That's my brave girl."

"Go to sleep, darling," she said softly. "You need your rest." And a few minutes later, still holding her in his arms, he did.

The town of Inverness awoke the following morning to the sound of drums and pipes calling the army to muster. Alasdair and Niall were on foot at the head of the MacIans, not far behind the prince, who rode at the head of his army on a gray gelding. Frances and Van watched silently from the sidelines as the column swung to the east, out of Inverness and toward Duncan Forbes's empty house of Culloden, which was their destination.

Niall marched beside his father, his spirits rising with every step. The sound of his own battle song on the pipes filled his heart with joyous anticipation. They had prevailed against the Sassenach before. They would do so again tomorrow..

Alasdair spent several hours seeing his clan quartered in the park of Duncan Forbes's fine house. Patiently he went from man to man, calling each by name and speaking a heartening word.

"Mac mhic lain, Mac mhic Iain," he was greeted on every side by smiling faces. It was late in the afternoon when he finally went up to Culloden House to meet with the prince and his council of advisers. Lord George Murray was just arriving as well. He had stayed in Inverness to bring up the men who had been quartered in the neighborhood of the town. He and Alasdair went into the meeting together.

Niall remained with the clan, talking to Alan Ruadh and his sons, waiting for the food to be distributed.

Alasdair returned to his men with a deep, hard line carved between his brows. "Father," Niall asked apprehensively, "what happened?"

"That damn fool O'Sullivan has chosen the moor as our battleground," Alasdair replied. "No one, of course, thought fit to consult Lord George on this trifling matter."

Niall stared at his father. "We would do better if we had some hills," he said.

Alasdair cursed. "Any Highlander could tell you that. Lord George wants to take up our ground on the other side of the Nairn water. The ground there is hilly and boggy. The Sassenach could not effectively use their cannon or horse."

"Dhé!" said Niall. "And did the prince agree?"

"The prince is no longer listening to Lord George or to the chiefs," Alasdair snapped. "We are to fight on the moor."

Niall pulled his plaid close around him. It was cold and he was hungry. "When are the provisions coming up, Father?"

Alasdair looked bleak. "There are no provisions. Hay of Restalrig neglected to bring the food wagons from Inverness."

Niall stared in disbelief.

Alasdair straightened his own plaid. "Lord George has given command of the battle to the prince. He himself will command the right wing. We are to fight next to him, then the Camerons and the Appin Stewarts. The MacDonalds are to have the left."

"By tradition the MacDonalds have always had the right," said Niall blankly.

"Not tomorrow," Alasdair replied wearily. "Well, there is food for you and me at Culloden House. The rest of the clan is to be issued a biscuit a man."

Niall cursed in Gaelic, soft and long.

"Aye," said his father. "I quite agree."

The following morning, April 15, the whole army marched up the braeside to Culloden Moor, a flat plain at the northwestern edge of the much larger stretch of rough upland country known as Drummossie Moor. The army was drawn up in battle order and was reviewed by the prince, who was pleased by the spirit of his men.

The clansmen who stood on Culloden Moor that morning, wearing the traditional plaids of their hills and following, in feudal fashion, the orders of their chiefs, had eaten only one biscuit in the last twenty-four hours. They stood, unwavering, in battle formation, their faces to the northeast, their eyes searching the heather for the first sign of Cumberland's infantry.

Cumberland did not come. By eleven o'clock Lord George learned that it was the duke's twenty-fifth birthday and he had decided to stay at Nairn to celebrate. There would be no battle that day. The prince grandly told his men that they might refresh themselves with sleep "or otherwise." But there was no "otherwise." John Hay of Restalrig had still not brought up the food from Inverness.

The chiefs, the generals, the prince, and his Irish advisers held a meeting. Alasdair and Lochiel counseled retreat.

"This is no field for the clans," Alasdair said forcefully. "They have no stomach to stand waiting as they are waiting now. And with empty bellies too!"

"The food will be got!" Hay said hysterically.

"When, for God's sake?" demanded Lord George.

"I will not retreat," the prince said flatly. "You made me retreat from Derby and all has gone wrong since then. I will not retreat now."

"Very well," said Lord George heavily. "If that is so, then I am willing to lead a surprise attack on Cumberland's camp at Nairn."

The prince leapt at the suggestion. After some discussion, Alasdair and the chiefs concurred. It was to be a night attack. The clans were to march at dusk that day, pass around the town of Nairn, and fall upon the Sassenach soldiers in the darkness. As Alasdair remarked sourly to Lochiel, "Anything is better than standing on that moor as canon fodder."

The march to Nairn began at dusk. For as long as he lived, Niall was to have nightmares about that night march. To begin with, it was found that a third of the men had slipped away to Inverness in order to seek food. Time was lost while a futile attempt was made to round them up, and the march did not commence until nearly eight o'clock.

Lord George Murray was in a black mood. Niall, watching, saw the prince put an arm around his shoulders, but Lord George merely took off his bonnet, bowed coldly, and said nothing in reply to the prince's words. Lord George then took his place in the van of the army and the march began.

The MacIans were in the front along with Lord George's Athollmen, the Camerons, and the Appin Stewarts. Their guides were the officers of Clan Mackintosh, whose country this was, but the ground through which they passed was treacherous—boggy and full of quagmires. It was dark, foggy, and cold, and all along the way exhausted men threw themselves onto the heather and refused to move further. The gap between the van under Lord George and the rear under the prince widened.

A halt was called and in the darkness, while tired and hungry men struggled to collect themselves, Lord George and O'Sullivan argued bitterly. Niall listened in a kind of daze. This can't be happening, he thought. The night was eerie with fog. The very ground seemed to shift and move under his feet. It was four more miles to Nairn.

Next to him Niall heard his father's voice, speaking with such familiar acidity that he was, unaccountably, heartened. "If we are to make Nairn before dawn," said Alasdair, "we had best stop arguing and get the army moving forward."

But when the first light began to streak the sky, the Highlanders were not yet at Nairn. In the distance Niall could hear the English drums beating the call to order. A surprise attack was impossible. The army was ordered to retreat. In the growing light, the exhausted, starving clansmen retraced their steps to Culloden House, where they fell in their tracks to sleep. There was still no food.

Two hours later the pipes sounded to call the men into position once more on Culloden Moor.

Niall had had no sleep at all, nor had Alasdair. When they marched back to the moor the army left some thousand men asleep where they had fallen; nothing, not even the rant of their clans shrilled on the pipes, had been able to wake them. In spite of this, behind Niall and Alasdair, to the left of the Athollmen in the line of battle, stood some five hundred MacIans.

The army that faced the Duke of Cumberland on the sixteenth was in considerably poorer condition than it had been twenty-four hours earlier. The men had made a night march of nearly twenty miles and consequently had had no sleep. For two days they had subsisted on a ration of a biscuit and water. They had lost almost two thousand of their number to desertion and exhaustion. The French adviser to the prince, the Marquis d'Eguilles, wrote that morning to the French king: "In vain I represented to the prince that he was still without half his army; that the greater part of those who had returned had no longer any targets; that they were all worn out with fatigue; and that for two days many of them had not eaten at all." In spite of the French ambassador's advice to retreat, the clans that morning stayed in position on Culloden Moor.

Niall stood beside his father and watched the English lines form. Snow was falling. Once Cumberland had his cannon placed, he began to cannonade the Highland line.

The cannon fire went on and on. The prince, waiting for Cumberland to initiate the attack, rode up and down among his troops encouraging them.

The deadly round shot went on. "For God's sake, Father," Niall cried to Alasdair, "when are we going to charge?" Men were falling all around him.

Alasdair stood among his dying MacIans, sword and pistol in hand. There was both anguish and anger on his face. "Go to Lord George, Niall! Tell him I cannot hold my men longer."