White Rose Rebel

by Janet Paisley

  ‘But is hardly fair punishment!’ Hawley complained.

  ‘Your hanging would give her glory and influence,’ Cumberland responded. ‘A death she seems to seek. This –’ he blotted the ink dry ‘– will remove her from our history.’ He handed the paper to Louden. ‘Soon, she’ll be forgotten. I doubt she will have peace now.’ As Louden left to carry out the order, Cumberland smiled. He had a fitting answer to the problem of Colonel Anne Farquharson, the Lady McIntosh, and his cousin, the Pretender, to thank for it. Justice was done.

  Bright in the sunlight, the blade of the axe flashed as it was raised. The crowd on Tower Hill gasped audibly, in an intake of breath, and held it. On his knees, Lord Kilmarnock felt the hard wood of the block press against his throat. The blade flashed down.

  The minister in Anne’s cell had come to give comfort in her last days.

  ‘Whither thou goest I will go,’ he read. ‘And where thou lodgest, I will lodge, thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.’

  Anne stared up at the cell window. Margaret’s trial had begun that morning. Soon, they would come for her. She was afraid of dying but not of death. All the pain and grief would go. In the grave, there could be no more torment. The trial would relieve her guilt. She would confess it there, make her peace. She hoped she could walk calmly to the scaffold. Others, whom she knew to be brave souls, had been unable to give life up with ease. From the jail, their screams and struggles could be heard. She’d think of Ewan, the suffering she’d been spared. Let her stay numb to life. Let her not dishonour the dead with the body’s desire to live. Let her not fail at the last.

  A key was put in her cell door and turned, clattering. The minister’s voice faded away to silence. This must be the moment. She closed her eyes briefly, drew a deep breath, turned round. Lord Louden stood in the doorway.

  ‘trobhad, you are to come with me,’ he said.

  Coming out of the prison, Anne was blinded by the light. How dull and dingy it had been inside. But even with her eyes shielded, she recognized the hooves, fetlocks, legs and body of the horse she was led to. It was her own Pibroch. She was helped into the saddle, to the familiar shape and warmth of the beast. She might have broken then. How cruel they were. She could have walked more easily to the court. But Louden did not lead her and her escort there. They rode on through the town. Folk stopped to watch then talk as she passed by.

  They took the road towards the port. Ships sailed south from there, taking those for trial in England to Berwick or to London. Some had said they were afraid to try her in the Highlands, afraid of public riot, others that they were afraid to let her speak at all. Those being transported also left from there, sailing to the colonies and a life enslaved. Was that the intent, to tear her from her homeland, make her live, far away and silent?

  She asked the soldiers at her sides but got no answer. Lord Louden, up ahead, did not turn round. At the crossroads, they did not take the coast road, but turned south. So, there would be no trial, just sudden death. As had happened to so many, she would be taken to some quiet place and shot. At least that would be quick. Poor boys, she glanced at the escort, so young, most of them, to be made do such desperate things.

  She tried not to think of what would come. Instead, eyes adjusted to the light, she took in all the shades of green, the dark heather, bright trees, the birdsong. Pibroch’s strong back was under her, his muscles worked against her legs. Up above the sky was blue, streaked with thin, white cloud. Larks sang, soaring out of sight. The warm, light wind brushed her skin, teased her hair. Out here, there was no judgement, just the earth doing what it did. The cruelty of being in it stung. This world would be hard to leave.

  On Tower Hill, Lord Balmerino stopped the executioner’s apology.

  ‘Friend, you need not ask me forgiveness, the execution of your duty is commendable.’ He gave the man three guineas, all he had, took off his coat and waistcoat and laid them on the waiting coffin. ‘There are some who may think my behaviour bold,’ he said, ‘but I tell you, it arises from a confidence in God, and a clear conscience.’ He knelt, put his head in the block, and called the executioner to strike.

  The blade of the axe flashed in the sunlight as it swung back. Aeneas was with Donald Fraser and Shameless, out on the slope above Loch Moy. The blacksmith had healed well but must still be careful not to tear his wound open again. It was Aeneas who wielded the axe. Shameless chopped branches from the fallen trees. Fraser stacked them. They were felling wood to re-roof the burnt-out cottages. The cottars who had lost their homes would move in once the repairs were done. Stone buildings provided better shelter than the turf cotts had. Again, the blade of the axe flashed as it swung forward. The whack as it hit the wood echoed through the glen. White chips flew out of the cut. Aeneas pulled the axe out, swung again.

  ‘Chief,’ Fraser called over, ‘look.’ He nodded towards the road from Inverness, distant across the loch. Foot soldiers and riders could be seen, travelling in their direction.

  Instantly, Aeneas turned and ran for the house. Fraser and Shameless crashed along through the trees behind him. He burst into the hall, startling the Dowager, who sat by the window, reading.

  ‘What on earth is happening, ciod e?’ she asked, as he hurried to arm himself with sword, dirk, pistol. Shameless and Fraser followed him in, doing likewise.

  ‘There are troops coming,’ he said, strapping on his sword.

  Hearing the fuss, Jessie came in from the kitchen and picked up the axe.

  ‘Has there not been enough killing?’ the Dowager asked, though she lifted the poker from the hearth as the sound of horses clattered into the yard outside.

  ‘They’ve done all they will do here,’ Aeneas retorted, grimly turning for the door, sword in his right hand, pistol in his left, the dirk pushed in his belt, and backed by the equally armed blacksmith and McIntosh lad.

  The door was knocked and opened. The three men spaced themselves in the wide hall. Lord Louden strode in.

  ‘Aeneas,’ he smiled. ‘Good day to you.’ He took in the guns and blades all aimed at him. ‘Are you expecting trouble?’

  ‘That depends if you bring any,’ Aeneas answered.

  ‘I have an order for you, and a prisoner,’ Louden answered. ‘You can decide for yourself how much trouble that is.’ He called to the men outside. ‘Bring her in.’

  Anne was escorted into the hall. There was a stunned silence, broken first by the sound of the Dowager’s poker falling to the hearth.

  ‘Anne!’ she cried out, rushing to her.

  As his aunt threw her arms round his wife, and the others sheathed their weapons, Aeneas stared, frozen with disbelief that she was here. She looked pale but well. How could she look so well? Louden held the order paper out.

  ‘Lady McIntosh is to remain in your custody until she learns the error of her ways and is reformed,’ he paraphrased.

  ‘My prisoner?’ Aeneas said, belting his pistol and sheathing his sword to take the paper and read.

  ‘Aye, Captain,’ Louden grinned. ‘The Duke has turned the tables rather more pleasantly this time.’ He nodded to the Dowager and left, his men following him out.

  Aeneas scanned the document, barely able to take it in. Anne was to remain his captive until such time as she demonstrated proper, modest behaviour befitting a wife subject to her husband, the law and the Crown. She would not espouse any cause bar that acceptable to him and he was charged to ensure the denial of her previous unlawful activities at all times, present or future. He looked up at her. She had not moved, nor responded to the Dowager’s warmth, but stood tense and unapproachable, eyes downcast, barely present.

  ‘Are you all right?’ the Dowager asked, worried.

  ‘I’m well, thank you,’ Anne replied. Her quiet politeness was chilling. She might have been a stranger in a strange place.

  For seven weeks, from the moment Shameless told him she was taken, alive and unharmed, to Inverness, A
eneas had been unable to think of her without becoming enraged by his impotence to act. Now she was here. His aunt had petitioned for her release, as had many others. He had not, could not, without further jeopardizing his beleaguered people. His role in the British army was all that protected any of them now, a role that shamed him. There was nothing he could say to her.

  ‘Would you take Anne up to her rooms?’ he asked Jessie.

  Anne’s head came up. Her eyes met his, alarmed.

  ‘Don’t worry, my lady,’ he said, tersely. ‘I’ll confine myself elsewhere.’

  Immediately, she dropped her gaze but not before he saw her relief.

  ‘As you wish,’ she murmured.

  ‘As I wish?’ he burst out. ‘There is not one single thing in this whole sad and sorry situation that is as I wish!’

  The others, standing around, gasped. Anne flinched, but she kept her head down.

  ‘I didn’t choose this,’ she said.

  He snorted; even gratitude was beyond her if it meant she must bear his presence.

  ‘Neither of us has any choice now,’ he snapped, turning his back as Jessie took Anne upstairs. When the door closed at the top, the Dowager came over to him.

  ‘Aeneas, have pity. She’s alive.’

  ‘Barely, since she obviously would rather be dead than here.’

  ‘Isd, no! That’s shock. She was prepared to hang. Can you not be kinder?’

  Aeneas unbuckled his sword and threw it down. ‘I have trees to fell,’ he said, snatching up the axe Jessie had left against the wall. ‘There are homes to build.’ He went out. Fraser and Shameless exchanged a look and followed behind.

  The axe glinted as it rose. On the block, Lord Lovat pulled the cloth that would catch his head closer to it. The crowding folk on Tower Hill held their breath, waited. Some said this old man should have hanged five times over for past crimes. Now he met his match. The axe flashed down.

  There had been a point on the road when Anne realized where they headed. Before she could form the thought of execution at her home, Lord Louden turned in the saddle.

  ‘Moy will be glad to have you back,’ he said.

  Weakness hit her. This was all wrong. Hope was a bitter thing, unwanted and undeserved. At the door of Moy Hall, white roses, their fat buds about to burst, mocked her return. The sickening echo of a scuffle by the stable rose in her memory. Inside, they all stood, like accusations: Jessie without her child, Donald without his son, Shameless without Robbie, Aeneas with hundreds from his clans gone.

  Now, upstairs, Jessie talked as if some good had come.

  ‘I unpacked your things,’ she said. ‘Even when we thought you were gone for ever, I hoped you would come back.’

  ‘How could you want that, Jessie?’ Anne sat down, heavily, on the bed. ‘Look what I caused.’

  ‘Not you.’ Jessie crouched down on the floor in front of her, looking earnestly into her eyes. ‘We all did our own choosing. I tell myself my baby did too, that she’d rather be with her father, where the heroes are, than here, where we are now.’ Tears filled her eyes. ‘Even Will…’

  Anne put her fingers to the girl’s mouth. The mention of the lad’s name brought his face in front of her, lying in the gore. Visions of them all, cut and torn, swam up.

  ‘Isd, wheesht,’ she said, fighting for control. ‘I have them all inside me, but if I speak of them or cry for them, they will all come out for me, as they did before.’

  ‘But you can’t hold them. Not so many.’

  ‘I can. I have to.’

  Jessie got up, sat beside her on the bed and put an arm round her.

  ‘We can’t live without hurt.’

  ‘I am so sorry, Jessie.’

  ‘Now you wheesht,’ the girl echoed her, ‘or you’ll have me crying again. Your life is saved. There will be something you are meant to do with it.’

  The Dowager came in then, with a tray of wine and glasses.

  ‘You’ll be needing a drink,’ she said. ‘And if you’re not, I am.’

  ‘And a bath,’ Jessie said, jumping up to go and prepare one. ‘I bet they don’t have baths in the jail.’

  ‘Would it be all right,’ Anne asked, ‘if I had paper, pen and ink?’

  Jessie and the Dowager exchanged a glance.

  ‘I don’t see why not,’ the Dowager said.

  ‘I’ll fetch some up,’ Jessie said, brightly, ‘when I come to take you for your bath.’

  As she went out, the Dowager poured wine and put a glass in Anne’s hand.

  ‘What is it you would write?’ she asked, casually.

  Anne stared at the red liquid. The windows were wide open. In the summer warmth, the scent of the opening roses below already filled the room.

  ‘Whatever I can,’ she said, her voice a whisper, ‘to stop others following them.’

  FORTY

  ‘I can’t let you send these.’ Aeneas laid the letters down carefully on the table and looked up at Anne. ‘You’re not allowed to talk or write about the things you did, not even to get someone else released.’

  It was almost two weeks since she’d been returned to them and still he could not get used to her demeanour. She stood, hands folded in front of her, head bowed, staring at the floor, not looking at him.

  ‘Anne –’ he tried to speak more gently ‘– saying your brother and cousins only did as you asked isn’t an excuse, even if it was true. The English don’t understand clan law.’

  ‘Then what can I write?’ Even her words didn’t seem like her. Anne usually just said what she would do. She sounded lost.

  ‘Plead for mercy. Say they were misguided. Point out what their loss will mean to others. If you can throw doubt on the Crown’s witnesses, do that. Blame a chieftain only if that chief is dead or safe abroad, and make sure you explain clan obligation.’

  ‘So I can try?’ Briefly, she looked at him.

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Margaret Johnstone –’ He paused. Now he couldn’t look at her. ‘Lady Ogilvie has been sentenced to death. You might want to appeal for clemency.’

  Anne turned and left the room. The Dowager, seated by the open window reading, had heard the whole exchange.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked her.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘The way she speaks, as if there was no one inside her who could decide anything. Even her friend’s sentence provoked no reaction. She wears acquiescence like a shroud.’

  ‘She’s a prisoner.’

  ‘Oh, come on. The Anne I know would rage about that.’

  ‘Then why don’t you ask her?’ The Dowager looked over her magazine at him.

  He couldn’t, that was the answer. Subservience was a foreign attitude, not one Highlanders wore. Pride was usually their problem. Guilt was his.

  ‘Is it me, what I’ve done, what I do?’

  ‘You just read her mail.’

  ‘I have to.’ He put the sheets of paper in the cold hearth and set light to them. ‘She’ll get us all hanged.’

  ‘He’s a clever man, the Duke. We’re Scots, but now you live by English rules, your wife under your thumb.’

  ‘Which doesn’t alter the fact they’d hang me first, take over Moy and –’ he couldn’t resist it ‘– leave you without a wine cellar to raid.’

  ‘You really need to re-stock.’ The Dowager didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Things have been let slide. Your uncle must be turning in his grave.’

  A few days later, at breakfast, he approved the letters Anne had written.

  ‘These are very good.’ The people she wrote to plead for included her brother, her cousin, Margaret Johnstone and Jenny Cameron, but she had also written on behalf of those who would have few champions left, their chiefs either dead, fled overseas or among those in prison. Every word made him more ashamed. ‘I hope they bring results.’

  Across the table, Anne kept her head down, ate her porridge and said nothing.

  ‘I’ll have Shameless take them to the post,’ Aeneas added.
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br />   ‘Can I do that?’ she asked, still not looking at him.

  ‘What, go into Inverness?’

  ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Margaret will be gone soon. Can’t I see her one last time? Jessie could come with me.’ She glanced at the girl, who was pouring her tea, then dropped her eyes back to the table. ‘If she likes.’

  ‘I’d like that fine,’ Jessie said. ‘I haven’t been out since, well, for months.’

  ‘Not three months, Jessie,’ Aeneas corrected. ‘I don’t want you risking your recovery.’

  ‘I have an easy time,’ she assured him, ‘now Morag’s come to do the cleaning.’

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ the Dowager added. ‘If she’s well enough to cook, she can sit in a carriage. Let Anne say her goodbyes.’

  So it was settled. Shameless hitched up the carriage. He wasn’t the natural with horses that Will had been, but he was willing. In the kitchen, out of earshot, Anne helped Jessie prepare a couple of food baskets for the prisoners.

  ‘You don’t have to do this for me, Jessie,’ she said. ‘It could be dangerous.’

  ‘I’m doing it for me,’ Jessie said. ‘I’ve scores of my own to settle with the Sasannaich. A life for a life seems a fine way.’

  Aeneas insisted Shameless drive them, for protection. So that he could carry weapons with impunity, the lad wore his Black Watch uniform. Aeneas gave him a brief written order detailing his escort of the two women in case they were questioned. He wasn’t convinced the trip was wise but he hoped it might help Anne. He would rather face her anger with him than be treated to this pitiful subjection. It was at least a fine day they drove off into, Jessie jaunty in a fresh white cap and apron, Anne wearing her favourite blue summer dress. He didn’t realize until they left that he was afraid they might not drive back.

  On the outskirts of Inverness, the first stop was at the house where Anne had left Pibroch on the day she’d witnessed Ewan’s death. The guard on the door checked the basket of food Jessie carried before he let them in. The Skye woman, Nan MacKay, had nursed several wounded Jacobites back to health and on to face trial. Now she only had one patient left, the paymaster, Robert Nairn.