She was tiny in his arms, delicate boned and at least a head shorter than he. He could feel the lines of her ribs through the soft linen of her bodice.
“Andrew,” she whispered against his lips. “Take me wi’ ye.”
No, he thought. This could only end badly for both of them. His hands fell from her waist and he took a step backwards, but she held him, wrapping her arms around his neck.
“Stop, Janet,” he said. “Let me go.”
“Please take me wi’ ye, Andrew,” she pleaded. “Dinna leave me here. Take me wi’ ye and I’m all yours.”
He reached behind his neck and gently loosened her hands. He brought them together and held them against his chest, between their bodies, so they could both feel his heartbeat.
“I’m sorry. No,” he said.
She suddenly seemed smaller, as if all the hope in her body had abandoned her. He fought the urge to kiss her again. Even in her unhappiness she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. But her expression turned swiftly from distress to animosity. The flush on her neck and cheeks that he had roused now darkened.
“Why not?” she demanded. “You and I, we could go away, start a life somewhere. I’d be a good wife an’ ye know it. I’d be—”
He placed one of his fingers against her lips to stop her.
“Hush, Janet. No. I’m sorry. It’s just that—there’s someone else.”
He heard a whisper in his mind. Help me, she had said, the words escaping through bloodied lips.
Andrew belonged, body and soul, to the girl from his dreams. He was hers and she was his, whether they ever touched or not. He needed to believe all these years of waiting, of wanting would eventually bring them together. Regardless, he would never truly love another. He couldn’t.
He hoped Janet wouldn’t ask anything more. How could he explain that he loved a girl he’d never met? Fortunately, she didn’t.
“But—”
“I shouldna have kissed ye. Please forgive me,” he said, looking into her closed expression and feeling wretched. “I’m sorry.”
Without a word she turned on her heel and headed toward the house. She didn’t speak to him for the rest of the day. He hated the silence, but there was nothing he could do.
At supper, Iain suggested it was time to continue the search for more survivors. Andrew was relieved. He had been growing restless. They agreed to head out the next day. Their party grew substantially as Hector decided to go along with them, bringing his sons.
In the morning the men set out on the ponies, loaded with supplies. Andrew looked back as they left the yard and saw Janet in the upstairs window, waves of shiny black hair framing her pale oval face. He turned back toward the path and tried to wipe the image from his mind.
Chapter 13
Rescue of the Innocents
By the second night the men had come across three abandoned homes deep in the thicket. The following day they discovered the remnants of a cluster of cottages built closely together for the safety they hadn’t been able to provide in the end.
The ponies kept moving, plodding through misted game trails. Snatches of conversation between the men fell dead on the ground, smothered by shadows. Andrew and the others were worn down by the monotony and lack of success. They almost missed the small, shabby cottage that peeked from under a silver netting of mist, hiding amidst the trees.
Two children sat in the doorway, clinging to each other, their eyes huge in their grubby faces. They didn’t move as the strangers drew near. It was apparent from their clothes they were a girl and a boy, somewhere in the vicinity of four and five years old. The little boy’s filthy shirt was tucked haphazardly into his kilt. His sister wore a frock, so worn and dirty it was difficult to tell its original colour. Both had long red hair the rain had darkened to auburn.
Of the five men, big Iain was the first to reach the children. He crouched in front of them and looked from one tiny face to the other, speaking gentle Gaelic. The children stared, ingesting his voice, but saying nothing. He reached into his sporran and dug out two small pieces of bread. Their pale blue eyes followed the food.
“A bheil an t-acras ort, a chlann?” he asked. Are you hungry?
They responded by letting go of each other long enough to seize the food.
“Where are yer parents, mo chlann?”
The children said nothing. They simply chewed the bread and stared.
“Dè an t-ainm a tha oirbh?” But they kept their names a secret. Iain rose slowly, rubbing his fingers over the bearded line of his jaw.
“We’re goin’ inside yer cottage. To seek yer parents,” he finally said. There was no reaction from the children.
Hector nodded to his sons. Simon and Geoffrey stepped around the little ones, and walked toward the door.
There was a horrible smell about the place, a stink so thick the brothers could almost taste it. The reek of rot, sweetened by the tang of old feces. Geoffrey left the door wide open to try and get fresh air into the cottage.
The pantry door was ajar, and the lowest shelves were empty. Other than that, the room was neat and tidy, seemingly untouched.
The only sound in the cottage was a buzzing noise that grew louder as Simon and Geoffrey approached the closed bedroom door. They exchanged a grim glance and covered their noses with their plaids before Simon unlatched the door. It creaked open at his touch, and the stench struck them with renewed force. The air inside vibrated with the wings of hundreds of swollen flies. Beneath the dining mass lay the corpse of a woman.
Batting away the winged army with one hand and covering his face with the other, Simon stepped toward the bed with his brother right behind him.
Not just a woman, they saw, but a pregnant woman, the bulk of her stomach obscenely round over her lifeless remains. From the blackened stains on the sheets, it appeared she had died in childbirth. Half-filled buckets of water sat cold and useless beside the bed.
The brothers burst out of the cabin, their pale faces set. Simon turned aside and retched while Geoffrey walked to his father, to tell him what they’d seen.
Iain helped the children to their feet, grasping one tiny hand in each of his huge paws. He led them away from the house, talking all the time in a low, reassuring voice.
Geoffrey turned to Andrew and jerked his head toward the cottage. “We canna leave the lass li’ that.”
Andrew shook his head. “No. You an’ yer da ride back wi’ the weans. We’ll tend to this.”
Hector nodded, then knelt in front of the children, who still held Iain’s hands. He smiled gently. “Ye’ll come wi’ us now, aye? We’ll keep ye safe in our nice warm cottage, an’ ye can have hot stew an’ pie.”
The ground was hard and thick with twisted roots. It would take three strong men to dig the grave. Geoffrey and Hector could get the children settled by the time the others finished the foul work of burying the poor woman’s body.
The men lifted the children and, meeting neither resistance nor questions, carried them to the horses. Iain passed the boy up to Geoffrey, who waited on a quiet mare. Hector, cradling the little girl against his chest, swung onto his mount. The children’s bodies felt insignificant, soft and light as a pair of injured sparrows.
“Right then,” Hector said to the men. “We’ll have a hot meal waitin’ when ye get back to the cottage.”
“Fine,” Iain said. “We’ll be there soon as may be.”
Andrew watched Hector and Geoffrey turn their ponies back onto the trail, their arms and plaids wrapped tightly around the precious bundles.
After the ponies disappeared into the trees, Iain went into a small shed beside the cottage. He emerged a moment later clutching two shovels, then walked to the edge of the wood, where he planned to dig the woman’s grave. Andrew took one of the shovels and drove it into the ground while Simon collected large rocks to discourage scavenging animals. Mist sprinkled over the yard, adding to the misery of the day and the weight of the dirt.
When it was
ready, Andrew motioned toward Simon with his chin. “Let’s go an’ fetch the lady, shall we?”
Simon nodded, though his lip curled with disgust.
It was difficult to look at the woman’s body, or what was left of it. Death had molded her form into something vile. And yet her profile still offered a suggestion of her face, of the woman who had once watched her babies grow into children.
Andrew tugged her shift down, covering her nakedness and sending clouds of flies buzzing into the stifling air of the room. Simon moved past the bed and shoved open the latched window, as much to release the woman’s spirit to the open sky as to aerate the room. The heavy wooden shutter swung open, creaking from disuse, and cool air flowed into the room like a river.
The men pulled the sides of the soiled sheet together and wrapped it snugly around the body. Andrew, breathing through his mouth, carried her outside. He laid her inside the shallow grave and they covered the site with dirt. Then they bowed their heads and clenched their hands behind their backs.
Iain’s expression was miserable. More stricken than Andrew might have expected. The big man’s eyes shone, but he didn’t shed a tear as he murmured a blessing.
“Bithibh aig fois le Dia a-nis, lass. We will care for yer weans as they were our own. Rest and be wi’ God now. Ye did yer best.”
It was a moment before any of them moved. Andrew’s eyes burned and there was a tightness in his throat, but his tears remained unshed. He wished he could cry for this woman. No one had. The children hadn’t made a sound when they’d been placed on the horses. Someone should be crying, he thought.
As if they heard him, the heavens responded, turning the mist into a downpour. Water fell from the sky in silver sheets, and puddles danced at the men’s feet. Andrew followed the others inside the house, where they stamped clumps of mud off their shoes and shook rainwater from their plaids.
The breeze did a fair job of freshening the air, but the cottage still smelled horrible. Andrew went back outside, preferring the rain to the stink. Behind the cabin he found a small patch of grass, slightly protected beneath a corner of the roof. He sat on the grass and leaned against the wall, not minding the dampness beneath his plaid. Iain joined him and they exchanged weak smiles. They said nothing, only rested deep in their thoughts, lulled by the random pattern of rain on the leaves.
The area was quiet and pretty. It seemed like a safe place.
Pat, pat, pat, pitter, the rain tickled the leaves. Andrew’s dark eyes watched the drops roll on the shiny green surfaces, joining with others before splashing to the ground. It was hypnotic, watching the clear, perfect beads. He started to count seconds between drops, idly looking for rhythm in their dance.
Pat, pat, pitter, pitter, pitter…
His eyelids grew heavy, and he lowered his chin to his chest, gratefully surrendering to sleep.
Pitter, pitter, pitten, pittren, children, children! “Help the children! Help the children!”
The voice shook him within his sleep. “The children! Help the children!” she cried.
Two little faces formed in his mind. Their elfish noses were shiny with rainwater, pale blue eyes wide with fear.
“Help them help them help them,” he heard, as clearly as if she whispered in his ear.
Andrew woke, gasping, and leaped to his feet. The sudden movement woke Iain, who automatically reached for his dirk. Andrew looked around the yard beyond the house, confused and disoriented. His eyes lit on a pony, and he ran toward her.
“Come wi’ me,” Andrew called to Iain. “We must catch up to Hector.”
“What?” Iain exclaimed. “Why—”
“It’s about the children,” Andrew shouted over his shoulder as he reached the pony. “Hurry!”
Simon stared curiously as the other two sprinted past. Iain shrugged and hauled himself onto his pony.
“MacDonnell says we must go. Come on!”
Simon frowned, but mounted his own pony, nudging her into a gallop along the path.
An hour’s ride at Geoffrey’s and Hector’s comfortable gait meant Andrew and the other men could reach them in half of that. The voice in Andrew’s head still cried, “The children, the children!” and he pushed his labouring pony to her limit. The rain had stopped, but mud flew in wet slabs from the ponies’ hooves, slapping against trees as they passed. Iain called out from behind, protesting the pace, but Andrew kept moving, with Iain and Simon thundering behind him.
Then they heard them: sounds they knew intimately, which made Andrew’s stomach clench. The clashing of metal on metal. The grunts of men in the midst of battle.
The ponies streaked through the trees, slipping on the slick ground, recovering and still running. Andrew swiped a hand across his eyes to clear them of rainwater, and leaned lower over his pony’s neck.
Andrew, Iain, and Simon crashed through the brush, and a half-dozen red-coated soldiers swung around at the explosion of sound. The Scots leaped from their ponies and joined the fight.
Geoffrey was blood-smeared and labouring, defending himself with desperate swipes of his sword. He looked up with relief when the other men arrived, but lost his balance and slipped in the mud, giving his opponent an easy target. The soldier stepped toward Geoffrey’s prone body, sword ready to strike. Before he could attack, Andrew was at his friend’s side and, using both hands on the hilt for strength, swung his own sword across the soldier’s chest, slicing the army-issue shirt and the underlying skin to ribbons. The soldier’s sword dropped into the mud and the man collapsed to his knees, clutching at his chest with both hands. Blood squeezed through his fingers and ran down his wrists, staining the white cuffs of his sleeves. Then he fell forward and his face hit the earth with a dull thud.
Geoffrey, weakened by exertion and injuries, dragged himself to the edge of the conflict. Beside him, paralysed astride two nervous ponies, sat the children, staring slack-jawed at the scene before them.
Hector had lost his sword to an English strike and now clutched his dirk as a last resort. As sharp a blade as it was, a dirk lacked the reach of a sword. Its strength lay in close combat. Hector was quick, spinning and ducking, somehow avoiding the soldier until the light English sword finally sliced deep into Hector’s arm, just below his shoulder. Hector dropped to his knees, looking up as the soldier stepped toward him with the heady confidence of certain victory. Before the soldier had an opportunity, Simon flung himself at the man, roaring in a voice that couldn’t quite disguise his youthful zeal. He stabbed his father’s attacker, yanked his sword from the body, and ran to Hector’s side.
Geoffrey had torn a strip of linen from his own shirt and tied it tightly around his father’s injured arm. The blood flow slowed, but the wound was deep. Hector laid his head on the ground and breathed through the pain while his son tended him.
Across the clearing, Iain took charge. The fury he had kept buried since Culloden ripped through him. He growled at the British soldiers, flexing his back and shoulders, readying his muscles. A huge sword swung from his right hand and a dirk from his left. Without a moment’s hesitation, he took on two soldiers at once. His sword caught one through the chest just before his dirk sliced through the other’s throat. Then he was beside Andrew, standing against the final two soldiers. The Scots finished the battle quickly, using their hatred as a weapon, sharper than any blade.
Iain stepped around the bodies of the slain soldiers, reaching the children in three long strides. He lifted the girl from the saddle, and her arms and legs wrapped around him as if she were a spider. The little boy took a gasping breath, and Andrew collected him against his chest. Tremors shook the little frame until they finally burst through in a flood of tears. He clung to Andrew’s neck with twig-like arms, and his tears soaked through Andrew’s shirt.
“Hush, laddie,” Andrew whispered. “Ye’ll be all right.”
The sound of crashing underbrush had them all suddenly alert and scanning the forest.
“There!”
Hector pointed at
a flash of red tearing through the trees.
“I’ve got him,” Andrew said, untangling the tiny hands from around his neck.
He placed the boy, still heaving with sobs, on the grass beside Iain, then ran toward the sound. The bright red uniform betrayed the fleeing soldier, and Andrew threw himself into the brush, racing after him, oblivious to the branches that whipped at his face.
Andrew’s thoughts raced as quickly as his legs. The enemy soldiers had been on foot, not carrying much in the way of supplies. They had seemed well rested and their uniforms showed relatively little wear. That meant their camp was probably fairly close. If this one man escaped, he would head straight to the English camp, and the army would strike back at Andrew and his friends without mercy.
Andrew ran on, crushing roots under his feet, vaulting fallen trees. A branch caught his plaid and tore a jagged hole in the wool, but he kept running, catching himself when his foot slipped on a rock. The soldier had escaped into the trees long before the Scots spotted him, so there was a substantial distance between Andrew and his quarry. Andrew was already tired from the fight, his knees weak beneath him, but he couldn’t give up.
For a moment, Andrew lost sight of the man. It was as if the soldier had simply vanished. Then the crack of a musket ball blasted a tree beside Andrew, sending shards of bark flying in all directions and attuning him to the source. He locked on to the bloodred jacket and aimed directly for it. He cut the distance in half, in half again, until the man was only a few feet ahead.
The soldier looked back to see Andrew and panicked. He tripped on a tree root, landed hard on his chest, and skidded across a moss-covered rock. He rolled over, grabbing for the pistol at his belt, but Andrew was faster. He leaped onto his prey, banged the soldier’s head on the rock, then plunged his dirk through to the man’s heart.
Under the Same Sky Page 9