White Rose Rebel

by Janet Paisley

  ‘That’s too long,’ Anne interrupted. ‘Ewan, he should’ve been home. That’s far too long.’

  The door from the kitchens flung open. Will rushed in, Jessie close behind him.

  ‘They’re coming back,’ he yelled. ‘Our army, they’re coming back!’

  ‘Dè bha siud?’ The Dowager spun round to him.

  ‘What!’ Anne was on her feet. ‘From London?’

  ‘They didn’t go to London. They stopped at… at –’ he couldn’t recall ‘– some place near it. Lord George told the Prince they were coming home.’

  Anne and the Dowager stared at one another, as if the answers to all the questions that raced through their minds could be found in each other’s eyes.

  ‘George will have his reasons,’ the Dowager got out.

  ‘That’s not all –’ Will was fair to bursting with it ‘– the government army is leaving Ruthven barracks! Going to Edinburgh, everybody says.’

  ‘Going to head them off,’ Anne conjectured. ‘Going to engage us.’

  ‘I would think,’ the Dowager agreed. ‘Oh dear, this is not good. There will be General Wade’s army behind them now. Then they’ll march into this one.’

  Anne grabbed hold of Will.

  ‘Would you ride round Moy? Tell the guards we’re moving and I need every other warrior who’ll come out. We’ll gather at Invercauld.’

  ‘I will.’ The lad nodded frantically. ‘Soon as you let go my plaid.’

  She did, and he rushed out, the door clattering behind him.

  ‘Ach –’ Anne remembered. Too late. ‘There’s Dunmaglas.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ Jessie volunteered. ‘And I’ll send some runners from the first place I pass to the other clans.’

  ‘Good girl, good thinking.’

  And Jessie, too, was gone. Anne ran into the kitchen and came back with the arasaid Jessie had taken from her the previous night, throwing it round her shoulders and belting it at the waist.

  ‘You’ll be off back to Braemar, then?’ the Dowager guessed.

  ‘No, my brother’s clan is already gathering. He’ll know our plans have changed. I came to see Aeneas and there’s more reason now than I thought, so I’m not leaving till I do. I’m going to Inverness.’

  ‘But they’re looking for you. You’ll be recognized. See.’ She lifted a London broadsheet from the table to show her.

  ‘Not from that, I won’t.’ Anne stared at the caricatured sketch. Surely it was a joke? She glanced at a second drawing beside it. ‘Jenny Cameron? They have her like a man.’

  The Dowager would not be put off. ‘Folk round here can put the right face to your name. It’s dangerous.’

  Anne flipped the loose fold of tartan that hung down her back up over her head. The hood effectively hid her face.

  ‘Most women will be hooded against the cold now,’ she said, ‘and I look like a cottar in this.’

  ‘But how will you get in the fort?’

  ‘I’ll worry about that when I get there.’

  Then she, too, was gone.

  ‘Jessie!’ the Dowager called then, tutting at herself, went back to the dining room and poured herself another tankard of ale. ‘Well, dear house,’ she said, raising her drink in a toast, ‘seems you’re stuck with me again. Slàinte!’ She drank it down.

  On the edge of Inverness, Anne stabled Pibroch with a woman she could trust, getting the horse into her kitchen so the neighbours wouldn’t talk. She left her sword and dirk, feeling naked without them, but wearing weapons was as good as declaring who she was.

  ‘Be careful,’ the woman said, as she made to leave on foot. ‘They’re hanging spies in the square. Struan Davidson it was, the other day.’

  ‘The signwriter?’ Davidson had collected funds for Jacobite troops. One of the dispatches sent with Ewan had been for him.

  Anne pushed a pistol deep into the folds of her arasaid, in case. That alone would get her arrested, if it was seen, but at least she would not go without a fight. When she reached the square, there was a buzz around the gallows on the far side. It was market day, the square crowded with stalls, and folk were there to buy, see the troops off or watch another hanging. The crowds made good cover. Behind the gibbet, redcoat troops assembled, leaving the fort to join those at Ruthven further down the road. The gates were open, Lord Louden’s pennant flying from the mast. The Black Watch was still there, though perhaps not for long.

  Anne kept her head down and worked her way around, perusing the stalls like any other cottar wife. At one of them, she bought a flask of ale. That would do. She’d hurry to the gates, pretend she was a trader sent with a gift for Aeneas, no, for Louden, to wish him victory. That would get her in. Other women came and went, wives, sweethearts, those on business. In all the clatter of bodies, droning pipes, soldiers rushing about, those lining up, she’d never be noticed.

  She turned to cross the thronging square, walking purposefully as suited being on an errand. High up on the gallows platform, some poor half-dead soul was lifted up by the armpits, head drooping on to his chest, towards the noose. Anne turned her gaze resolutely towards the fort, and froze. On the cobbles, at the foot of the gibbet, a captain in Black Watch uniform walked forward and stopped, looking up at the prisoner above. It was Aeneas.

  Aeneas glanced up at the bruised and bloodied face of the man with the noose around his neck. Now he stared. Beside him, James Ray also stopped walking, and waited, his wife trailing behind. He looked idly around the square. Behind the breathless, waiting crowd, a hooded cottar woman, strangely familiar, stood transfixed, staring back, apparently at him rather than the hanging. Behind him, the trap of the gibbet clattered open. The condemned man dropped, the noose jerked tight around his neck, throttling, strangling. His legs kicked wildly. Aeneas saw who it was and grabbed Ray.

  ‘Weight that man down!’ he ordered, forcibly, pointing.

  Ray leapt forwards, wrapped his arms round the dying man’s thrashing limbs, and jumped, bending his legs so he dropped with all his body weight jerking the struggling man downwards. The man’s neck broke, his legs twitched, the kicking ceased.

  Anne automatically looked where Aeneas pointed. Her whole body chilled. She stared up at the hanged man, the hood of tartan falling back off her face. The man who swung on the gibbet was Ewan. Hardly able to comprehend, she gazed at the stocky warrior’s bruised, dead face. Aeneas had hanged Ewan. She had sent the cottar home, to start a new life. She had sent him with a letter for Aeneas, a letter asking that they talk, and this was her husband’s answer. To Ewan, of all people, he would do this?

  A skinny general dressed in black leapt in front of Aeneas, prancing like a demented stick-insect. Anne could hear his high, thin voice screaming.

  ‘What have you done? I wanted that man alive!’

  A hand touched her shoulder, another on her back, turning her round.

  ‘You’ll catch your death, dear,’ a woman said, drawing Anne’s hood back over. It was Helen, James Ray’s wife. ‘You shouldn’t be out.’ She propelled Anne, arm round her waist, in the direction she’d turned her, back across the square, away from the gallows, towards the other side.

  Beside the gibbet, Hawley was apoplectic, screeching at Aeneas and Ray.

  ‘You’ll pay for this!’ He whirled round to yell at the hangman. ‘Cut him down! Cut him down!’

  Ewan’s body slammed, face down, to the ground beneath the trap.

  ‘I wasn’t finished with him,’ Hawley raged. ‘I wanted him drawn. The sight of his own gut might’ve loosened his tongue.’

  Aeneas looked at the dead cottar’s flayed back. Deep gouges gaped open, black with crusted blood. Exposed bone showed through.

  ‘I doubt it,’ he said, grimly. ‘He’s a cottar. He would have nothing to tell.’

  ‘Do you think I’m a fool, McIntosh?’ Spittle frothed at the side of Hawley’s skinny mouth. ‘He knew where your wife is!’

  Ray looked round for his own wife, wondering where she’d gone. His eyes
searched the crowd, the square. Across the far side, he caught a movement, the flutter of Helen’s dress, two women vanishing between the stalls. He headed off after her, pushing through the crowd around the gibbet.

  ‘Cross me again, McIntosh,’ Hawley ranted, ‘and you will dance on the gallows next!’

  Aeneas drew a deep, hurting breath. Peace was all he’d been able to give Ewan. Anne had even more to answer for now; her whereabouts had led the clansman to this tormented death. Hawley was just a disease, a symptom, of what they’d done to themselves, but the sick love of torture and the rope was all his own. Icy calm, Aeneas stared contemptuously into the general’s furious eyes.

  ‘Every man should dance,’ he said, ‘before he dies.’

  Reaching the other side of the square, Helen gave Anne’s waist a quick squeeze.

  ‘We, the officers’ wives, we all think you’re wonderful.’ She pushed Anne into an alley. ‘Now go, go quickly,’ she urged.

  Anne gave her a look of gratitude, thrust the flagon of ale into Helen’s hands and hurried away through the close.

  ‘And stay alive,’ Helen whispered. She drew a deep breath, balanced the flagon on her arm, smoothed down her dress and turned out of the alley. Her husband stepped in front of her.

  ‘You came in here with a woman,’ Ray accused.

  ‘Indeed not,’ she held the flagon out. ‘You were busy. I came over to buy ale. Then I was caught short.’

  ‘A woman I think I recognized,’ he corrected, pushing her aside to glance down the close.

  Fearfully, Helen squinted around him. The alley was empty. Anne was gone.

  ‘I didn’t see any woman, dear,’ Helen smiled. ‘I was relieving myself.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  MacGillivray stood on the carse looking up at Stirling Castle. He’d seen it before, while on a cattle raid in his youth. It was the gateway between Lowlands and Highlands, a fine castle, seeming to grow naturally out of the high rocky crag on which it stood. The flat carse-land all around meant it had a fine view of the land below. Like Edinburgh Castle and the three Highland forts, it had been garrisoned by British troops since the Union, as if the Scots were a subjugated people. When the rising began, those garrisons retreated behind their defences and stayed, immovable. The Prince was determined to remove this one. A company of the Écossais Royaux, sent by King Louis to support the Jacobite forces left in Scotland when the main body invaded England, had arrived from Perth. With them, they brought battering cannon, now being positioned to assault the castle. Every now and then, the garrison inside fired off a shot or two, but the Jacobites were well out of range.

  ‘You think they would’ve run out by now,’ Donald Fraser said. The blacksmith stood at MacGillivray’s elbow. They’d begun the siege after taking Glasgow on the way home from England. It was a strange city, Glasgow, small compared to Edinburgh. Its people had rioted twice against the Union, in 1707 and again twenty years ago. Now it grew wealthy. Its merchant ships, no longer hounded by the English navy, plied the New World colonies. Trading in tobacco and sugar, it was the only part of Scotland to benefit from the bastard marriage of their nation. Few of its citizens still opposed the Union. The Jacobite army re-provisioned and left. Now they were mired in a siege at Stirling.

  ‘I think they’re cutting shot out of the rock,’ MacGillivray answered. ‘If we wait long enough, one day, the castle will collapse into the hole they’ve dug.’ He turned to smile wryly at Fraser. ‘Then we can all go home.’

  It was early morning, the middle of January, but an unusually mild, wet spell. He hadn’t heard from Anne since November, when she left him at the border. He could guess where she was, settled with Aeneas in Moy for the winter, peat fire blazing, mulled wine to hand, re-acquainting themselves with married life. Aeneas was a lucky, lucky man. No doubt he knew that now.

  ‘Anne would have found a way in,’ he told the blacksmith.

  ‘Or winkled them out,’ Fraser grinned.

  The exercise was futile. At the Prince’s insistence, wanting to keep a toe-hold in England, a Jacobite force had stayed to hold Carlisle. Cumberland’s army, smaller than they’d been told, ceased pursuit to besiege it. Two weeks ago, Carlisle had fallen. The siege here was tit-for-tat time-wasting. Hunger and thirst were not weapons for warriors to wield. A man should act, or atrophy. Only twenty-five miles east, Hawley’s army now occupied Edinburgh. Cumberland closed behind them. Either they should turn and face him or return home, as planned, to mount a fresh offensive in spring.

  Instead, the Prince kept them here. When he wasn’t consulting the French engineer about siege engines, he sulked in his quarters with O’sullivan, drinking. The Écossais Royaux had also brought the information that their army had been assembled at Dunkirk but dispersed when the Scots turned back from taking London. Lord George now seemed unwilling to confront the Prince with demands for progress. Jacobite numbers were high, increasing all the time, but the Lowlanders were restless, old scores rose among the clans. Soon, they’d be fighting among themselves.

  MacGillivray picked up a rock and hurtled it towards the fortress. It rattled into the naked branches of a tree.

  ‘If the Prince wants this castle, he can wait for it,’ he said. ‘I’m going to ask our regiment if they will pack and go home.’

  ‘You’ll only get yes for answer,’ Fraser said. ‘They’re all wanting back to their families, before the worst of the weather breaks.’

  They began to walk back to camp. North of them, among trees, was movement, massed ranks. The two men stopped, straining to make out who, or what, came their way.

  ‘Hawley’s force from Edinburgh?’ Fraser suggested.

  ‘Not from that direction.’ MacGillivray shook his head. ‘Besides, the scouts would have given us warning.’

  The marchers were out of the trees, on to the open carse. The strains of the pipes drifted over the distance. The tune was ‘The Auld Stuarts back Again’. Jacobites, then, marching to the rebel song, men and women swathed in tartan, children running alongside. Behind the piper, three riders led them, blue bonnets on each. A tall blond man, wearing feathers, sat on one mount and, opposite, another, less imposing chief. Between them, on a white horse, was it, could it be?

  ‘Anne!’ MacGillivray ran, the soft pampooties on his feet scudding over the rough grassland, towards her. Before he had covered half the distance, Anne was galloping towards him. She pulled Pibroch up, slid off the horse and into his arms, kissing him, holding him, murmuring his name.

  ‘Are you back to stay?’ he asked, leaning back to look into her eyes.

  ‘There is nowhere else I want to be.’

  He kissed her again, her mouth, her face, her throat, her hair, holding her tight up against him, feeling the warmth of her body penetrate through his plaid.

  When the others reached them, he swung her back up into Pibroch’s saddle. She patted the horse’s rump, inviting him to ride behind her. He leapt up and wrapped his arms round her like an unskilled rider who needed to hold on.

  ‘Why didn’t you send word you were coming?’ he asked in her ear.

  ‘George sent a runner. He wanted nothing to leak out.’

  They rode into camp between her cousin and brother, seven hundred Farquharsons, McIntoshes and others of Clan Chattan marching behind. George Murray was waiting.

  ‘Perfect timing, Anne,’ he smiled.

  ‘Your message was very precise.’

  He held back the flap of the campaign tent, ushering them in. The other commanders waited inside – even O’sullivan languished in a corner – all except the Prince.

  ‘Hawley left Edinburgh with his army some days ago,’ Lord George explained. ‘He’s camped at Falkirk, twelve miles away, and means to engage us here, tomorrow or the next day. I have a different plan.’

  Joining the Prince’s siege had been a feint, designed to seduce Hawley out of the capital on to terrain suitable for Highland warriors. Lord George intended to clear their way home. So far, the hated English ge
neral had unwittingly played along. Scotland had its own double agents at work.

  After the briefing, MacGillivray walked with Anne to Pibroch.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t suggested this,’ he said, bending on one knee so that she could use his thigh to step up into the saddle.

  ‘It will help,’ she said. ‘And I want to see this man close up.’ Hawley’s reputation as a brute had grown. Edinburgh offered no resistance to his entry, yet he set up gallows in several parts of the city, imprisoned the provost and hanged a number of citizens just for show. As vicious as their commander, his forces smashed every window not lit to celebrate their arrival. The homes of suspected Jacobites had been ransacked for supplies.

  ‘Then be careful, he might know you.’

  ‘He thinks I’m an Amazon,’ Anne laughed. Then, seriously, ‘I know what I’m doing. It’s you that must take care. Don’t die now, Alexander.’

  ‘If you’re with me, I’m invincible.’

  ‘Just watch your back this time.’ She slapped the reins and rode away.

  MacGillivray watched her go. All he had to do was survive. As had she, as had she. He walked back to his mobilizing troops.

  It was a ten-mile ride eastwards from the Stirling encampment to Falkirk. The market town lay midway between the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, twenty-five miles from each. Following Lord Kilmarnock’s instructions, Anne skirted the southern edge of it, high up on moorland. Down below, she could see Hawley’s tents, his army camped on a flat plain between the rising ground and the town beyond. When she reached the burn the earl had described, she followed its course downhill through forest to the edge of Callendar estate, on the town’s east side. Among the trees, she tied Pibroch in a clearing, comfortably loose so he could crop and reach the stream. Walking on down through the wood, she soon found the path that led to the rear of Callendar House and the door to its kitchens. Kitchens were safe entry points; people came and went all the time, nobody noticed. Even the cook, sitting with his feet up on the hearth, barely glanced at her. The housekeeper was another matter.