Tides of Fortune

by Julia Brannan

  “Mr Mathieson paid me to follow you,” he said, his voice trembling.

  “Mr Mathieson? Is he the clerk in the post?” Angus asked.

  The man went to nod his head then thought better of it.

  “Aye,” he said.

  “Right. And why did he want ye to follow me?” Angus asked.

  “I dinna ken. No, really, I dinna!” the man cried as the blade bit even deeper. “He just tellt me that when James Drummond came in to collect his letter I was to follow you, find out where you were staying, and then go back and tell him.”

  “He tellt me that the letter came in a few days ago. So ye’ve waited at the office every day since then?” Angus asked.

  “Aye, he said he’d pay me a pound if you…”

  “If I…” Angus prompted, when the man showed no signs of finishing his sentence.

  “If you were arrested,” the man finished shakily. “Please, if ye let me go, I’ll go and tell him I lost you, I swear I will.”

  Angus thought for a moment. It was a shame he couldn’t see the man’s eyes.

  “Ye’re lying to me,” he ventured. “What if I’d no’ come for weeks? Ye wouldna have stood in the office all that time for nothing, in the hopes of maybe earning a pound. There’s more you’re no’ telling me.” He felt the man tense, and knew he was right. “You’re no’ from these parts, I can tell by your accent,” Angus continued, “so let me tell you something. This is a part of town, if ye havena guessed already, where I could dismember ye slowly and no one hearing ye scream would even pause in what they were doing to think about it. If anyone were to walk down this close, they’d step round us so as no’ to get their shoes bloody. Now, if ye dinna tell me everything, I fully intend to prove what I’ve just tellt ye to be true. Is that what you want?”

  “No!” the man cried. “I…he…Mr Mathieson, he tellt me that there’s a Jacobite plot afoot, and there’s a spy in London sending coded letters to ye about the gold that was landed by the French, that you’re arranging to ship it to England, or maybe to the Young Pretender, so he can pay for an army to raise another rebellion.” He was so desperate to tell all he knew now, to save his life, that he was tripping over his own words. “He said that if we could catch you, then we could make ye tell us where the gold is, and we’d all be rich! Please, that’s all I ken, I swear it!”

  “Yon Mathieson, has he tellt the clerk in London about this plot?” Angus asked.

  “No, he said that he didna want the bluidy Sasannachs getting the gold, when he was the one who’d discovered about it.”

  “That’s very loyal of him,” Angus said drily.

  “Aye, he hates the English. We all do,” the man said desperately. “Please, dinna dismember me!”

  Behind the man’s back, Angus smiled grimly.

  “I’ll no’ dismember ye, laddie,” he said softly, and removing the dirk from his captive’s throat, he lowered it, changed his grip slightly, then drove it between the man’s ribs and into his heart. The man stiffened for a long moment, then relaxed.

  Angus lowered him gently to the ground, then pulled the dagger free, remembering the time – was it really five years ago – when he’d nearly fainted on seeing Alex kill a man in cold blood in just the same way. He smiled to himself, remembering his innocence, and how much he had changed in that time.

  He’d had no choice but to kill the man; if he’d let him go, he’d have gone straight back to Mathieson to tell him what had happened. As it was, with luck the clerk would wait a while longer for his man to come back with news, by which time Angus would be long gone. He wiped the dirk on his victim’s coat, sheathed it and carried on walking down the alley, pondering what to do next.

  He had to get out of Glasgow right now, that was certain. If the man had told him true, then Alex was not being watched and was in no immediate danger of arrest. In fact, if he’d read the letter correctly, then Alex was almost certainly no longer in London at all, and unlikely to write any more letters to his nephew for Mathieson to intercept. Even if he was still there Angus had no way of communicating with him, as neither this letter nor the previous one he’d received had told him where Uncle Archie could be reached.

  Alex would surely be in no fit state to do anything rational, even if he thought he was. He had almost lost his mind the first time he had thought Beth to be dead. To believe her alive, only to find she had died after all, might be more than he could bear.

  “Ye should have come home, brother,” he said softly to the night. At a time like this Alex needed his clan around him, people who loved him, people with whom he could vent his grief and anger, make mistakes with no repercussions. He did not need to be walking straight into a web of intrigue and duplicity, which it seemed he was about to do.

  But Angus could do nothing about that right now. He thought about what he could do, reasoning that by killing the man, he’d bought himself enough time to collect both his purchases and his pony. Better not stay the night, though. That would be pushing his luck just a bit too far. He turned right, then right again, emerging back on to High Street. Then he turned left, in the direction of the river and his lodgings.

  * * *

  To Angus’s surprise, Lachlan and wee Jamie intercepted him a couple of miles south of the MacGregor settlement, materialising out of the landscape and waving before heading down the hill to meet him.

  “What’s amiss?” Angus said, immediately alarmed. “Have the redcoats come?”

  “No, nothing like that,” Lachlan said. “I’m glad you’re back early, though.”

  “I havena bought ye anything, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Angus said. “Except a length o’ woollen cloth for your ma to make ye a nice pair o’ Sasannach breeches.”

  Lachlan screwed up his face in disgust.

  “Morag’s having the baby,” Jamie blurted out.

  “What?!” Angus cried. “She canna be! It isna her time yet!”

  “Well, she is anyway. Ma shooed us all away, so we thought we’d head south to see if we could meet ye on the way and tell ye.”

  Angus threw the reins of the laden garron at Lachlan.

  “Bring her back,” he said, and then he was off, running at full speed towards home.

  “Ye should have let me tell him,” Lachlan said sulkily to his smaller companion.

  “I canna think why he’s rushing, anyway,” Jamie responded. “Ma said it was women’s doing. She’ll only shoo him away as well.”

  “There’s nothing ye can do,” Peigi said, as he came to a stop outside his house, gasping for breath. She’d seen him running full tilt along the path and had come to the door to meet him. “She’ll be a while yet.”

  “I want to see her,” Angus said between gasps. “I’ve something for her.”

  “I dinna think—” Peigi managed, before he gently but firmly moved her out of the way and went into the room. He expected Morag to be lying in bed, but instead she was walking up and down dressed only in her shift, supported by Janet and breathing like a train.

  “Morag, mo chridhe,” he said. “Are ye all right?”

  She looked up, then her face contorted with pain and she bent over, groaning. After the spasm had passed she straightened up a little and shot him a look of the purest hatred.

  “You bastard,” she said. “You keep away from me. You ever come near me again, and I’ll geld ye. Get out.”

  He stopped halfway across the room, stunned by her response to his appearance, which was the last thing he’d expected.

  “I want to help,” he said, looking at Janet. “Here, let me hold her.” He moved forward to take his wife’s arm.

  “I dinna think—” Janet began, unconsciously echoing Peigi.

  “GET OUT!” Morag shrieked. Lunging away from Janet, she picked up the nearest thing to hand, a wooden bowl, and threw it at him. It caught him a glancing blow on the side of the head and then bounced off into the corner of the room.

  He got out.

  “I did try to warn ye. Sh
e’s a wee bit fashed the now,” Peigi, who was still outside getting some fresh air, said with spectacular understatement when he reappeared.

  Angus reached up to the side of his head and winced. His hand came away bloody.

  “She threw a pot at me,” he said disconsolately. “Why does she hate me?”

  “She doesna hate ye, ye loon. Women are all different, but it’s a hard time for us. And it’s her first, ye ken. She’s blaming you right now, that’s all.”

  “But she wanted bairns as much as I do. Did you throw a pot at Alasdair when you had your first?” Angus asked.

  “Well, no, but then he wasna daft enough to come upon me when I was in pain. He kept well away until it was over, which is what you’re going to do.”

  “But I need to help her!” Angus cried. “I canna just leave her to get on wi’ it alone!”

  “She isna alone. I’m here, and so is Janet, and there’s others will take over later. This is women’s work. Have ye news frae Glasgow?”

  “Aye,” Angus said. “But—”

  “Away and tell the others then. Morag’ll be a good while yet, I’m thinking, once the pains start properly.”

  “Ye mean it’ll get worse than that?” Angus said, aghast. “I must be able to do something!”

  Peigi reached out and gripped his face between her hands, pulling him down so he was level with her.

  “Angus,” she said, her face inches from his. “Ye’ve done what needed to be done. Ye’ve put the bairn in her. Now go away and let us get it out safely. I’ll come for ye if there’s a need, but in truth I dinna think there will be. The baby’s lying well, and Morag’s strong.”

  She let him go and he straightened up, his face anguished.

  “I’ll tell her ye love her, and ye wanted to be with her,” Peigi said. “She’ll appreciate that, later. But no’ the now. Go away.”

  Reluctantly, he did as she asked. When Lachlan and Jamie appeared with the garron, he unloaded it and personally distributed the contents around the village, to pass the time. Then he called everyone together to tell them what had happened in Glasgow. They all sat in the clearing in the middle of the settlement, Angus facing his house so he would see if Janet or Peigi came out.

  “Ye’re back earlier than we thought,” Dougal said. “We didna expect you home until later today.”

  “Aye, well I had to leave a wee bit suddenly,” Angus said absently, his eyes fixed on the door of his house, which was firmly closed. “It isna right,” he added. “She tellt me the bairn wasna due for another three weeks, at least.”

  “These two arrived four weeks early,” Alasdair commented, indicating his three-year-old twins, who he was currently in charge of and who were digging holes with a stick for a purpose known only to themselves. His five-month-old daughter was asleep in his arms. “And Jamie was early too, if I mind rightly. They dinna always come when expected.”

  “Really?” Angus said, relieved.

  “Why did ye have to leave early?” Allan asked.

  “What? Oh, aye. I bought everything ye all asked for, and then I went to the post, thinking that if there was a letter from Alex I could take it back to my room to read in private. Anyway…”

  He related what had happened, from leaving the post office to killing the man in the alley off the Drygate.

  “The letter had been opened and resealed carefully,” he finished. “I checked it before I broke the seal.”

  “Is there anything in it that would incriminate us?” Kenneth asked.

  “No, I dinna think—” A long, agonised scream came from the house. “Christ!” Angus cried, leaping to his feet and taking two paces towards the house before stopping, torn between wanting to go to her and obeying Peigi. Alasdair, Dougal and Kenneth exchanged a look, then they stood.

  “Let’s away down to the lochside,” Kenneth said, as though suggesting a turn around the garden. “We’ll no’ be disturbed there.”

  “But what if she needs me?” Angus said.

  Alasdair called his eldest son over.

  “Jamie, I’ll mind the twins. I want you to stay here. If Janet or Peigi come out, ye find out what’s happening and run and tell us. Come on,” he said to Angus. “Ye’ve clearly got news we need to talk about and we canna do that if your mind’s in the house there. Ye’ll be no use to yourself or Morag if ye wear yourself out worrying. She’ll call for ye when she wants ye, or Peigi will.”

  He was right.

  They adjourned to the lochside, out of earshot of the house.

  “What does the letter say?” Dougal asked once they were settled. Or as settled as they could be when their temporary chieftain with the news looked as though he was sitting on an ant’s nest.

  Angus took it out and unfolded it.

  “It’s very short. ‘My dearest nephew,’” he read, “’I am grieved to tell you that the package I came in search of, although I am assured of its safe arrival in London some time ago, has since been irretrievably lost. You will understand my distress at the loss of such a valuable item. As a consequence, although I hope soon to be reunited with you, I intend first to pay a visit to Aunt Charlotte, in the hope that her company may help to reconcile me to my loss. I am ever your most loving and affectionate uncle, Archie.’”

  A profound silence settled over the clan as they digested this letter from their chieftain.

  “Holy Mother of God, he must be devastated,” Kenneth said after a while. “What the hell’s he doing going tae Paris? He should come home, where we can comfort him.” There was a general murmur of agreement.

  “Is Charlie still in Paris, then?” Dougal asked.

  “Aye, as far as we ken. The last news we got frae Cluny said he was, but that was a good while ago,” Angus said.

  Allan sat looking from one to the other, puzzled.

  “How d’ye ken he’s gone to Paris?” he asked. “Who’s Aunt Charlotte?”

  “I’m sorry, man,” Angus said. “We’re so accustomed to you now, I forget ye’ve no’ been wi’ us long enough to ken what the letters say. It’s a code, in its way. The package he’s writing about is Beth. He’s telling us that she got to London alive, so it seems that bastard Richard was telling the truth, but that something has happened since then and she’s…” He stopped for a moment, and swallowed hard. “She’s dead,” he continued after a minute, his eyes moist. “Aunt Charlotte is Prince Charlie. He’s away to France to visit the prince.”

  “We canna do anything about that right now,” Alasdair said. “Though I think Alex must be half-mad wi’ grief. We all ken what he was like when he thought she’d been killed at Culloden.”

  “He shouldna be going to France now, while he’s like that,” Angus said, his worry about his brother momentarily overriding his fear for his wife. “I was there wi’ him last time. Ye have to have your wits about you all the time. There’s at least three meanings to everything everyone says, and ye canna let your guard down for a minute or someone’ll stab ye in the back. No’ literally,” he said to Allan, seeing the young MacDonald’s look of alarm.

  Iain, as was his custom since Culloden, had sat listening to all this silently, looking at the ground. He rarely spoke these days, and as a result when he did everyone listened.

  “It could be the best thing,” he said softly. He looked up at them all. “To do something that will exercise his mind. Every day is hard for me since I lost Maggie, but being able to go on the raids, to kill some of the bastards who are destroying our country, it helps a wee bit. I canna imagine what it would do to me to find out she was alive, and then that she was dead again, as Alex has. But I believe the reason he nearly died last time was because he couldna do anything but lie there in bed and think about her. If he has gone to Paris, then he’ll have to stay alert, and that’ll help him over the worst o’ the grief. I think he kens that.”

  He had a point. And he’d had the experience of losing the only woman he’d ever love, too.

  “Aye, ye could be right, man,” Angus conceded.
“I hope ye are. We canna do anything about that anyway. What worries me now is why the post clerk chose to open Alex’s letter.”

  “Maybe he opens everything that comes from London, just in case,” Dougal pointed out. “There canna be that many people writing from London to Scotland, apart frae the redcoats. And then when he’s read about the package, he’s come to the wrong conclusion altogether.”

  Half of Scotland was talking about the missing gold which had been landed by the French the previous year, and which had subsequently disappeared, been stolen, or was buried in a place unknown, depending on which rumour you listened to. No one seemed to know where it was. Except, in the mind of a Glaswegian post office clerk, one James Drummond, who, in collusion with his uncle was trying to use it to raise the Jacobites again.

  “Aye, if yon wee man tellt me true, and I think he did,” Angus said, “then it’s a good thing that he thought Alex was writing about the gold, because I dinna think he’s told more than a few about it, hoping to get it for himself. He wouldna have told anyone in London, because he’d ken that the first thing they’d do is try to capture Alex, and if he was right he’d never see a penny of it once the English got involved.”

  “In which case it’s also a good thing that Alex isna in London, in case the man talks now ye’ve killed his accomplice,” Kenneth said.

  “I’m thinking that this Mathieson, once he finds his man dead, will try to find out where the gold is some other way,” Angus said, trying to think as his brother would. “He’ll no’ tell the authorities what he was up to or they’ll ask a lot of awkward questions about why he didna go to them in the first place. And James Drummond’ll no’ be going to Glasgow again for a good long while, so I dinna think we need to concern ourselves, as long as Alex doesna go back to London and write from there. I canna see any reason why he would.”

  Wee Jamie appeared in the distance running down the hill, and Angus immediately forgot about the letter, Mathieson, and even, temporarily, his brother. He leapt off the rock he’d been sitting on as though shot from a cannon and rocketed up the slope, passing the messenger without pausing.