Page 20 of Midnight Honor (Highland Wolves #3)
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P rince Charles rose from his sickbed long enough to give an impassioned speech to the Camerons and MacDonalds before they departed for Lochaber. Fort Augustus was the closest, located at the southern end of Loch Ness, a dark territory of thick mists and monsters. Fort William was another thirty miles south and west, verging on the vast area controlled by the Campbells of Argyle. At last report, Fort Augustus was maintained by a skeleton garrison of fewer than a hundred men and should pose no problem to the combined forces of Lochiel and Keppoch. It was Fort William, with a garrison of over five hundred men and a strong battery of heavy guns, that had to be taken in order to control the exposed underbelly of the Highlands.
Anne dressed brightly to wave the brave clansmen off. She rode Robert the Bruce to the far end of Loch Moy, then sat atop the highest knoll, smiling and returning the waves of the Highlanders who marched past. Once again, the glen was filled with skirling pipes and tartans of red, gold, blue, and green. No more than fifty lairds and captains were mounted; the rest walked, as they had walked the countless miles from Glenfinnan to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to Derby, from Falkirk to Inverness. Some of them sang as they marched. Most left the enthusiasm to the pipers who filled their chanters and squeezed out stirring piob' rachds meant to strike terror into those who heard the distant, haunting echo.
MacGillivray had taken his men out before dawn, so Anne did not have another opportunity to wish him Godspeed. It was just as well. Though she had scraped snow from her windowsill and held it over her eyes, she knew he would have detected the swollen traces of her tears, and she wanted nothing to distract him from the dangerous business he was about.
When the Cameron clan filed past, one of the officers pulled his big black stallion out of formation and trotted up the hill to where Anne sat. Alexander Cameron tugged on a forelock by way of greeting and drew up alongside, watching the men tramp past. Pride was blended equally with trepidation on his face; it did not take much to guess the cause of either one.
“I have come to shamelessly beg another favor of you, Colonel.”
“I will take good care of your wife, Captain. As will she, in turn, take good care of your child.”
The dark eyes crinkled at the corners. “I have promised to be back within the week, but she can get a bit of a temper on her if she is disappointed.”
“Then ye would be wise not to disappoint her.”
He looked away a moment, then looked back, the crinkle turning to a frown. “You have heard nothing from The MacKintosh?”
“No. But I was not expecting daily letters. We agreed it would be safer if nothing was passed between us. He might write something, or I might write something, that could put him in danger.”
“Probably wise, aye. You might be interested, however, to know that there were some dispatches delivered into camp early this morning.”
The change that came over Anne's face was like the sun breaking over the tops of the trees. “Ye've heard from Angus?”
“He informs us that Cumberland has declared the Highlands to be little better than a hell on earth. Apparently, his men have no heart for our winters. On the first attempt to follow Lord George through the mountains, two hundred deserted. The second time, he lost nearer to four hundred. On the advice of his generals, he has decided to double back to Aberdeen and wait for the roads to become passable.”
“They have retaken Aberdeen?”
“And Perth. But to reach us, they have to cross those.” He gave a nod to the formidable blue-and-purple peaks of the Grampians that sprawled from one side of the horizon to the other. “Even if he waits for spring, he will find all that snow has melted to fill the bogs and flood the moors.”
“I pray Angus does not take too many risks in passing along such information.”
Cameron looked back. “He is doing a very brave thing, Lady Anne. He has all but stretched out his neck and laid it on the execution block. This is why you should try not to be too hard on him when you hear he is on his way back to Inverness.”
“He is coming here?”
“Well, not here precisely,” he said, indicating the frozen beauty of Loch Moy. “Several regiments are being sent by sea to reinforce Lord Loudoun's position, his own among them. The news is five days old, but we have no reason to doubt its veracity. And, oh—” He paused and removed a letter from his breast pocket. It was written on pink paper, folded and sealed, bound with a red ribbon. “This came with the packet of dispatches he managed to smuggle out before his ship sailed. I imagine pink paper is difficult to come by in an army camp. Even an English army camp.”
With those words and a handsome grin, he tugged his forelock again and wheeled his stallion around, descending the slope to rejoin his clansmen.
Anne continued to hold the letter in her gloved hand for a full minute without making any move to open it, her heart pounding so hard in her chest she was afraid it might fly out.
Angus was alive and on his way to Inverness. Cumberland's army would not be invading the Highlands anytime soon. She really did not need to know anything more than that, yet to judge by the thickness of the letter, he had a great deal to tell her.
A group of clansmen hailed her as they marched past and Anne responded with a dazzling smile. She tucked the letter into her belt and returned their waves, then glanced up at the sky, thanking the One who needed to be thanked the most for delivering the news safely into her hands. There was not a single cloud to be seen. The sun was warm and the snow glittered under its benevolent eye like a blanket of diamonds. Anne was as superstitious as any Highlander with good sense ought to be, and had the day been overcast and gloomy, she would have recognized it as a portent of ill fortune to come. But with the sun blazing from above and a letter from her husband pressing against her heart, she felt more confident about the future than she had in many long months.
“Are you certain your information is correct, sir?”
The speaker was Duncan Forbes, and the news was shocking enough to make him temporarily forget that his nephew Douglas was pouring him another whisky. He turned, pulling the glass out from under the decanter, then cursed roundly when the liquid splashed his hand, his leg, and the carpet in due order. With him inside the fortified walls of Fort George were Colonel Blakeney, newly arrived from Perth with fresh dispatches from the Duke of Cumberland; Lord Loudoun, who was pacing in circles like a bear tethered to a ring; and Norman MacLeod, Chief of Clan MacLeod and the officer in command of the Highland regiments at the fort.
“My source is above reproach, sir,” Blakeney said. “We have a spy close to the prince, and he assures us the Pretender is right under your noses, gentlemen. Charles Edward Stuart lies drunk in a bed at Moy Hall.”
Forbes took a hefty swallow of his whisky and shivered through the aftershock. “This man of yours also claims the bulk of the Pretender's army was there but now is not?”
“Lochiel and Keppoch removed their men this morning to Lochaber. Lord John Drummond is at Balmoral Castle, Clanranald is at Daless. At last report—" he paused to consult some notes he had scribbled on a piece of paper— “Lord George Murray is still struggling to cross the moors to Nairne. I would be surprised if he arrives any sooner than tomorrow noon. That leaves only Lady Anne's personal guard standing at the gates of Moy Hall.”
“If by ‘personal guard’ ye mean MacGillivray,” MacLeod said, “ye're talkin' about the Earl o' Hell himself, an' if he were standin' at the gates o' Heaven, Christ wouldna get past.”
“MacGillivray is at Dunmaglass,” Loudoun said, briefly halting mid-circle. “He and his men raided some cattle from the quartermaster's stockyard earlier this afternoon, and were last seen driving them away into the hills.”
“That's still too close f'ae comfort,” MacLeod scowled. “Besides, are ye no' expectin' reinforcements from Edinburgh anytime now? I say we wait on them an' cut our losses by half.”
“The troop ship, like everything else these days, appears to have met with some calamity off the coast. A storm or some such thing. They could arrive tomorrow, or the next day, or next week for all we know … assuming they have not gone down already or been smashed to bits on the rocks.”
“Tomorrow or the next day may be too late,” Blakeney insisted. “The time to strike is now, when the prince is vulnerable. The opportunity may not—most definitely will not—come again, and I say if there is a chance to capture the royal bastard, to take him with a minimum of bloodshed, then this entire tawdry affair could be over by midnight tonight. The will to stand and fight has gone out of his chiefs and council. They retreated from Derby, they retreated from Falkirk. Take away their only reason to remain steadfast to their oath and by this time tomorrow night, there will be no Jacobite cause, no army, no war—all to the greater glory of the men who had the foresight and audacity to bring it about!”
Loudoun swelled his chest with a speculative breath. “A bloodless victory by our hand would certainly pare Hawley's arrogance down a notch or two. I also expect the king would be generous in his rewards, were someone to save his son from the possibility of suffering the same ignominious fate as Cope and Hawley.”
“How do you propose to do it?” Forbes asked quietly.
Blakeney smelled an ally and turned to the Lord President. “We have two thousand men in the garrison. Give me fifteen hundred.”
“To capture one drunken, unprotected princeling? ”
“Merely a show of force to discourage any outside interference.”
“To cover yer arse ye mean,” MacLeod said dryly, “in case yer source is wrong.”
“If he is wrong,” Blakeney retorted, “a certain Corporal Peter Johnson will find his head impaled on a spike and set outside the citadel walls for the Jacobites to use as target practice.”
Forbes exchanged glances with Loudoun and MacLeod, then nodded. “Very well. How soon can you leave?”
“The men can be mustered and on the road within the hour. Within two, three at most, we should be back here with the Pretender and his gracious hostess secured in chains.”
“Lady Anne?”
“She is harboring an enemy of the Crown, is she not? That alone would be more justification than any military court would require to uphold a charge of sedition and treason. Personally, I have never hanged a woman before, but I am told they bleat and squeal like little piglets—the same as some men I have lifted off their toes.”
The sound of broken glass caused the four men to whirl and stare at Douglas Forbes, who stood all but forgotten in the corner of the room.
“I… forgive me, Uncle. The glass slipped. I will fetch someone to clean it up right away. Forgive me, gentlemen. Do carry on.”
He backed quickly out of the door, and when he was gone, the Lord President shook his head. “God knows my brother— may he rest in peace—was the same way. Turned pale if the conversation even hinted at violence. Though I do not imagine his reaction to be all that different from that of many. Hanging women is not what this is about, Colonel Blakeney, and would serve no purpose other than to make the young woman a martyr to the cause. Create martyrs and you create sympathy. No, Lady Anne is not to be molested in any way. Her husband is still a loyal officer in His Majesty's service, and I have given him the same guarantees I have given to others—" he looked pointedly at MacLeod— “to ensure his continuing voluntary support. If, as you say, there is a strong possibility of ending this whole sordid affair tonight, we will need The MacKintosh to pull his clan back under tight rein.”
“What of MacGillivray?” Loudoun asked. “I am of the opinion he has become a liability we cannot afford in war or peace.”
“I gave no warranty to MacGillivray personally,” Forbes said. “And in the aftermath of hostilities, there are always … accidents.” He looked at Colonel Blakeney, and the decision was made. “Bring me Scotland's prince, sir, and you shall have England's gratitude.”
Douglas Forbes needed a few moments to catch his breath. He had stumbled out of Lord Loudoun's office and barely made it to a supporting wall before his knees gave way.
They were going to arrest Lady Anne! They were going to put her in chains and lock her away in a rat-infested gaol cell until a spectacle could be made of her hanging! It was too much. It was too damned much—and he could not allow that to happen!
Wary of the colonel's adjutant watching him, Douglas straightened himself and his clothes and strode as calmly as he could out of the headquarters and into the yard. Twilight was full upon them, and since the afternoon sun had been strong enough to melt most of the snow inside the fort, myriad puddles shone like scattered pieces of broken mirror.
Feigning no great hurry, he called for his horse. When it was brought to him, he mounted and waved to the guards on the massive gates as he passed through. Inverness, a mile from the fort, was tiny by comparison to the other major ports of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Of the three thousand permanent residents, many had discreetly vacated their city homes to visit friends and relatives farther north in the more remote regions of Skye. If, as they feared, the final battle for possession of the Highlands would occur here, they would be faced with either a lengthy occupation by the Jacobites or the less than appealing military rule of Cumberland's army.
For all that it sickened Douglas to listen to the plottings and intrigues, he knew his uncle was right. Capture Charles Stuart, and Cumberland would have no reason to bring his army north. Inverness would be spared the reprisals of war, and her residents could return to their normal everyday affairs.
He had no quarrel with that reasoning. None at all. He had, however, become more and more convinced over the months that Scotland warranted better than being essentially a colony of England. The country was unique, the people were unique, and who were men like his uncle to decide what was best for them? England had surely fought hard enough to defend itself against French and Spanish attempts at invasions in the past, when a victory by either nation would have eradicated their way of life and imposed foreign rule. Why did they then feel it was their right to turn around and dictate to the Scots and the Irish and the Welsh how they should be ruled, whom they should pray to, and how their people should speak or dress?
Douglas realized these were all seditious thoughts, but again, when did pride and honor and a quest for freedom become sedition?
He pulled up sharply on the reins, not even aware of where he had been riding until he found himself at the end of Church Street. There, well back from the road, its windows winking at him through a long avenue of trees, was Drummuir House. The dowager would know what to do. She would know how to get a message to Lady Anne.
He spurred his horse forward and, after explaining to a liveried doorman that there was some urgency behind his unexpected visit, he was taken up the stairs to Lady Drummuir's private sitting room. The ten minutes he was forced to wait seemed interminable, but eventually he heard the rustle of silk and turned from the window to be greeted by his unsmiling hostess wearing a beaded black lace cap and a voluminous bombazine sack dress.
The dowager wasted no time on niceties. “I assume ye have a good reason for interruptin' my supper, young man. My soup is growing cold.”
“Forgive me, Lady Drummuir, but I did not know where else to go. I did not know who else might be able to help me.”
Lady Drummuir's expression softened. “Good God, lad. Ye're shakin' like a palsied leaf. Sit down … no, not there, ye'll drip on ma rug. Get yerself over by the fire. Aggie, fetch us wine, then leave.”
The maid did as she was ordered. When she was gone, the dowager nodded at Douglas, who then relayed as succinctly as he could, the conversation he had overheard in Lord Loudoun's office.
“I am appalled my uncle would even consider arresting Lady Anne. He gave his word of honor—” He raked a hand through his hair in agitation. “Nay, he gave his oath in a guarantee against the safety of Lord MacKintosh's family and clan, only to turn about now and conspire to hang the Lady Anne!”
“Guarantees? He gave my son guarantees?”
Douglas looked over. “Warrants of immunity, my lady, in writing. For yourself as well as Lady Anne. I saw them myself, stamped with the royal seal of office.”
The dowager turned and stared at the darkness outside the window. “That would begin to explain much. The bloody-minded fool, why he did not tell us?”
“Please, milady, tell me what I can do to help. I have left my uncle's house, and I am yours to command as you will.”
The dowager's blue eyes searched his face for a long moment, debating the wisdom of trusting the Lord President's own nephew regardless how smitten he was with her daughter-in-law. In the end she reached for a small bell on the table beside her and rang it hard enough to bring her maid back into the room on the run. After calling for pen and paper, she wrote out two notes. One she would send by courier to Dunmaglass; the other she gave to Douglas.
“This should pass ye through any sentries that are posted around Moy Hall, an' it should gain ye an immediate audience with Lady Anne. Tell her I 've sent for MacGillivray, an' if he is not halfway to Clunas already, he should be but an hour or so behind ye. No, on second thought, dinna tell her that. Tell her only that I've sent him word. Cut across the way from Meall Moor, the ground should hold well enough an' get ye to Moy ahead of that poxy Colonel Blakeney. Mind ye have a care, dammit. Ye've as good a chance at being shot for a spy at Moy as ye did comin' here from Fort George.”
Anne was in the drawing room when Douglas Forbes was escorted inside. He was red-faced from the cold, and hatless, and he had been practically carried along the hallway by two of the burliest clansmen he had ever seen in his life.
Dressed in tartan trews, Anne was alone. An assortment of pistols and muskets were laid out on the table before her along with the supplies and implements necessary to load and prime them. The note the dowager had written was lying alongside a small keg of powder, and although she glanced up when Forbes was ushered in, she did not pause in her task but fed a lead shot down the barrel of a Brown Bess and packed it securely in place with an iron ramrod.
“So ye've come to warn us about an ambush, have ye?”
Douglas swallowed hard. The two stocky Highlanders remained beside him, their expressions as menacing as the muskets they held cradled across their chests.
“Ye're about twenty minutes late,” she said without waiting for his answer. “One of the boys from the village overheard some whispers and ran straight here with the news. We managed to roust the prince from bed, and Mr. Hardy has led him, along with a few others, up to a cave in the hills. Can ye load a pistol, sir?”
“I… I… aye. Aye, I can do.”
She indicated a dozen smoothbore muskets lying on the table alongside the powder, a canister of shot, and a length of silk waiting to be torn into patches for wadding. “We have more guns than men to shoot them at the moment, but best to be prepared.”
“Is it true, then, milady? You are without protection here?”
“My cousins, Robbie and Jamie, have gone to scout the road, taking the smithy and three of his apprentices along as reinforcements. There are perhaps a dozen ill or wounded men who did not have the strength to walk to Lochaber with their clans, but they have stumbled in here one at a time insisting they can be of help. There are a handful of servants who have perhaps cleaned a gun at one time or another, and two maids who come from a family of poachers.” She laid down the one weapon and picked up another, standing it on end while she measured powder down the barrel, added the patch and shot, then tamped the lot in place.
Her hair tumbled loose around her shoulders as she did so, catching sparks of light from the score of candles that had been arranged in an arc around the table to render the working area nearly as bright as daylight.
“Ye're staring, Mr. Forbes.”
He stammered another apology and quickly picked up an over-and-under double-barreled snaphaunce. “I cannot conceive of there being so few men to guard the prince. Where is his army? What madman sent them to Lochaber?”
“That madman would be the prince himself,” she said wryly. “But I am curious to know what brought ye riding out here tonight, Douglas. Surely the madness is not contagious.”
“It was not a decision rashly made, milady. I think my heart was ever more for an independent Scotland than it was for the pleasure of bowing to King George's court. My only regret is that I took so long to fall off the fence.”
“Well, ye might be bruised and bloodied soon enough,” she said cheerfully. She cocked the last weapon to check the action of the hammer, then signaled to the two Highlanders to gather up the loaded weapons and follow her outside to where Fearchar Farquharson sat on an overturned bucket, giving instructions to the men and women who showed up in pairs or threes asking what they could do to help.
"Granda'?” Anne looked around as she stepped into the torchlight. “What is the count?”
“Twelve men on the road wi' Jamie an' Robbie," said the gray-haired old fox. "Anither ten or so in the bushes ayont, an' mayhap the same in the house an' up on the roof. Half o' those are lassies, more like as tae blow off their own teats as soon as hit a sojer in the dark.”
Anne leaned over and kissed his wrinkled brow. “Perhaps ye should go inside and get behind the barricades, where ye can watch over them to ensure such a thing does not happen.”
“Bah! I'm no' afeared o' any bluidy Sassenach sojers. I'll stay right here, never ye mind, an' ye'll see: Nowt a one will get past me. Nowt a one.”
“Aye,” Anne said grimly. “Even if they are on our side?”
“It were dark!” Fearchar declared. “The lad looked like a bluidy Sassenach .”
“Corporal Johnson is a bluidy Sassenach ,” Anne said gently. “But he is a bluidy Sassenach fighting on our side. Ye recognized him easily enough this afternoon when he brought ye a bag of sugared dates but tonight, when he volunteered his help, ye damned near shot his ear off."
"It were dark," he grumbled again. "I canna see in the dark so well as I did a hunnerd years ago."
Douglas Forbes was staring again. “Did you say … Johnson? Corporal Peter Johnson?”
“Aye. Do ye know him?”
“No. But apparently Colonel Blakeney does. He said they had a spy placed very close to the prince, and according to him it was a Corporal Peter Johnson who told him the manor house would be undefended tonight.”
“There ye go,” Fearchar snorted. “I told ye I didna trust the barstard. No' wi' them wee skrinty eyes always lookin' at the Camshroinaich Dubh's wife like as he could lick the skin clear off her bones. Where is he? Where is the barstard, I'll shoot off more than his ear!”
Anne looked out into the darkness, in the direction of the tall craggy peaks that rose above the tops of the fir trees. “Dear God, he is with them. He is with the prince and the others.”
Fearchar pushed to his feet. “Well, dinna just stan' there gawpin', lass! Get some horses. Get some men—!”
The rest of her grandfather's orders were silenced by the sudden popping of gunfire. It was sporadic at first, then came in volleys that echoed from side to side down the length of the glen.
“The English,” Anne gasped. “They have come.”