White Rose Rebel

by Janet Paisley

  ‘Eh, naw,’ he declined. ‘Ma shoes nip.’

  Meg’s bony hand shot out. Duff screeched. She had him by the balls.

  ‘Nì sinn dannsa, a Shasannaich,’ she said, dragging him by the testicles into the whirling group. Duff got the message.

  Walking past, Anne and MacGillivray stopped to watch. The excitement of survival was contagious. Greta, skipping out from her husband in a pass, bent down and twirled a crippled beggar on his wheelie board. At the far edge of the dancing, Jenny Cameron arm-wrestled Provost Stewart over a barrel. He made a good showing until she leant over, put her mouth against his, parting his lips with her tongue. Then she slammed his hand down, broke off the kiss and grinned. Those watching cheered. Several men leapt forward to volunteer for the next bout.

  Duff stumbled out of the dance, bumping against MacGillivray, who put a companionable arm round him.

  ‘Duff, old friend,’ he grinned, ‘did you not hear the Prince? The dead were his father’s subjects too. No celebrating, he said.’ Then he pushed the escaping shoemaker back towards the waiting Meg, who clacked her heels and drew him, again, into the dance.

  Anne took MacGillivray’s hand.

  ‘Maybe it’s time we didn’t celebrate too,’ she said.

  They joined the dancers, stamping and turning to the beat. They swung each other out and back, then turned around one another, all the time gazing into each other’s eyes. The glow from the brazier lit red fire in MacGillivray’s hair, his eyes shone, his lips parted in a slow smile. Anne’s heart thudded, her breath caught. She reached out, gripped his belt, drew him towards her until her breasts pressed against the hardness of his chest and his hips were against her. He hooked his arms behind her back, drawing her tighter to him, and they turned and turned and turned. She didn’t realize they had spun out of the dance until they were into the shadows and a wall pressed against her back. She reached up, pushing her fingers into his long, tangled hair and, as his head came down to hers, parted her lips for his kiss. She wanted him now, how she wanted him.

  She eased them sideways a step or two, into the dark shelter of a close mouth, still kissing, tongue seeking tongue, tasting, touching as a desperate desire built in them both. It was she who loosened the front of her dress, pushing his plaid aside, his linen shirt up, so that her naked breasts rubbed against his skin. It was she who tugged the front of his kilt up to his waist, reaching under it to take his erection in her hands as he raised her skirts, put his hand between her thighs, into the wetness of her, pushing his fingers inside her, stroking and caressing her as she with him until they were both lost in the daze of feeling, until they were half-crazed with it. It was she who put her arm round his neck to help as he put both his hands under her buttocks and lifted her up till her hips were at the height of his own. And it was she who remembered the way Aeneas had looked at her, over the body of the shot redcoat, on the battlefield at Prestonpans.

  MacGillivray felt the change in her as soon as it happened, his breath hot against her ear as he spoke.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, his voice deeper and thick with arousal.

  She moved her hands to his biceps, letting them rest there. He let her go till her feet were on the ground again, though their bodies still pressed close, skin against skin, flesh against flesh. He looked at her, head tilted, his eyes darker than shadows.

  ‘I didn’t fire my pistol,’ she said. ‘It was Aeneas. He saved your life, not me.’

  MacGillivray bent his head down so his brow rested on hers.

  ‘But you would have,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I would have,’ she agreed. ‘But I didn’t. It was Aeneas.’

  He tipped his head back, gazing up at the starless, black roof of the close above them. Then he raised his arms, pressing his palms, one on either side of her, against the rough stone, and looked down at her again.

  ‘I have never loved a woman in a city street before,’ he said. ‘Maybe this is not a good time to start.’ He pushed against the wall, straightening his arms so his body moved out from against her. His kilt and her skirts fell back down between them.

  SIXTEEN

  The sun had just gone down when Aeneas reached Fort George with the remnants of his war-torn company. It had been a harrowing week-long march through some unfriendly parts of the country. There had been many times, too many, when they were spat on, harangued, pelted with excrement, human or beast, and other, harder, missiles. Jacobite sympathizers abused them because they were government troops. Government supporters abused them because they’d been defeated. Among random acts of kindness from strangers who gave food, ale, bandages, the rare instances of pity and succour came equally from those of either camp or none. Friends were thin on the ground.

  Even in Inverness, there was scorn, cat-calling and dark threats muttered against them by locals. As they stepped out the last few weary streets to the fort gates, they heard the pipes calling them home. Now those gates swung open, the drums beat out a roll. A guard of honour presented arms, slapping their muskets to their chests. Two straight, perfectly formed lines of Scottish soldiers paid their respects to comrades returning from war.

  Behind Aeneas, sobs and sniffles began as the boys broke down. His own eyes started with tears. It would not do. He turned, halted the rag-bag company.

  ‘You’re not mothers’ boys now, lads,’ he said. ‘You’re warriors. Brave men I am proud to lead.’ He had set out with a hundred of them, eager young lads, barely whelped boys a kitten could have shaved with its tongue. Thirty-nine were left, some bandaged, some limping, their numbers swollen by stragglers from other units picked up on the road and one horseless English dragoon with an ear missing. All of them were shocked by what they’d seen, their faces hollow-eyed and haunted. ‘You left here with pride you hadn’t earned. Now you have the right to it. So let’s put some ramrod in those spines. Attention!’

  They tried, all but the half-carried wounded jerking upright.

  ‘Aye, Chief!’ they shouted back.

  ‘Now let’s try that again,’ Aeneas said, more kindly, with the flicker of a smile. ‘Atten-shun!’

  ‘Aye, Captain!’ The salutes were snapped out, almost in unison.

  ‘Better,’ he approved. They’d do. He turned around and marched ahead of them, through the two lines of honour guards, past the drums and piper, into the fort, sixty-one men short. Dead, wounded, captured, or simply run away. Tomorrow, he’d sit down with them, do a reckoning. Who they saw fall, with what injury, which wounded were alive when they left the field. Tonight, he was just getting them home.

  He marched them straight to the mess and banged on the hatch for the cooks. It slammed open, something smelled good. One of the cooks poked his head out.

  ‘Supper’s in an hour, sir.’

  ‘Supper is now,’ Aeneas said, quietly. ‘They’ll eat what you have, ready or not.’ He had no notion of how crazed he himself looked, blood crusted on his plaid, face expressionless, his eyes bleak.

  ‘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, McIntosh,’ 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, McIntosh,’ 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. McThomas shot in the face, Howling Robbie with an arm taken off, the McIntosh 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 it
s 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 McIntosh,’ 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.