Jennifer Roberson

  “I hear.”

  “You’d better!” With a flaring of soiled plaid MacIain swung on bare heels and strode out of the chamber.

  John displayed fresh linen. “We’ll have you up, then, so I can bind you.” One firm hand slid behind Dair’s bare back, urging him upright. “You might send a messenger tomorrow; MacIain will worry with no word.”

  Dair struggled into a sitting position, gritting his teeth against nagging pain and an overwhelming weakness. “He’d no’ welcome an interruption.”

  “He’d welcome word of his son. Here—lift your arm . . .” John began to wind the linen around Dair’s chest, binding the wad of bandage against his wound. “ ’Tis better for a father to know what’s become of his son before going into battle.”

  “—Christ, John!—” Dair hissed as the binding jarred his wound. With teeth clamped together he muttered, “—he’ll have you at his side. . .”

  “He’ll need to know, Alasdair.” John tied off the linen. His eyes were steady. “And so will I.”

  “Aye.” Perspiration ran down his temples. Dair was too weak to argue. “Aye, I’ll send word.”

  “Good. Now here—lie back . . . I ken, lad—I ken.” John’s taut expression mirrored Dair’s. “Rest. You’re a brawlie lad—you’ll be on your way to Perth in but a day or two.” He held a cup of cool water to his brother’s mouth. “After that ’tis home to Glencoe . . . unless you stop first in Appin.”

  Dair gulped until the water was gone, then frowned hazily. “Appin?”

  “Loch Laich.” John set the cup aside and pulled the blood-and soil-stained plaid across Dair’s bandaged chest; there were no blankets. “To show Jean Stewart her MacDonald is whole, lest she geld her brother because he didna see to his health.”

  Dair managed a smile as he neared the precipice. “She would. First Robbie—then me . . .”

  His brother laughed quietly. “I doubt she’d geld you, Alasdair . . . ’twould somewhat diminish the pleasure!”

  “—locket . . .” Dair murmured, recalling Robbie’s words prior to the battle.

  “ ’Tis here.” John tucked the necklace into Dair’s slack hand. “Dream of her, Alasdair . . . then ride to Perth as soon as you’re able. We’re needing every man.”

  Dair’s smile was very faint. “Even a man puny as an early calf. . . ?”

  “ ’Tisn’t what he called you when we carried you in here; ’twas plain you’d lasted longer than we had a right to expect.” John pressed his shoulder briefly. “Sleep. I’ll see you at Perth.”

  “John—” His brother turned back. “Dundee is dead. I’ve a recollection of that.”

  “Aye. And buried in the kirk.”

  “Then the lairds have met.”

  John’s face was solemn. “They’ve met. They’ve sworn an oath to serve Colonel Cannon.” He cast a quick glance around the chamber, then bent close. “He’s no Dundee, is Cannon—’twill not last, this campaign, unless we can keep peace among ourselves. But for now there is a chance . . . Mackay has seen to that.”

  “Mackay survived the battle?”

  “Oh, aye . . . and a furious man, is General Sir Hugh Mackay of Scourie.” The flesh beside John’s eyes creased as he smiled, robbing it of weariness and tension. “He sent word offering pardons and indemnities.”

  “But—he lost!” Dair was astounded. “What possessed him to offer such to the victor?”

  “Pride? He is a Scot, a Highlander, though too long abroad in the Dutchman’s service—and a Dutch wife!—has turned him from us; he serves the Sassenach cause. Anger?” John shrugged. “But ’twill serve a purpose, despite his intent . . . in doing so he infuriated the lairds who might otherwise have lost interest with Dundee dead. They sent him back a letter saying they would die with their sword in their hands before failing in their loyalty and sworn allegiance to our sovereign.”

  “MacIain’s words.”

  “I dinna doubt he had much to do with the wording.” John grinned. “But for now we’re united. We’ll no’ go home before our task is done. First Dunkeld, then Perth, all before winter.”

  Dair stirred against the pallet. “I shouldna be lying here.”

  “But you will lie there. You told MacIain so.” John rose. “Dinna forget to send word.”

  “No.” Dair’s eyes shut. Look to MacIain . . . look to yourself . . . But he realized, as the sound of John’s footsteps receded, the words had been sounded only within his skull.

  Three

  Seated at his table near the leaded western window of his castle, the Earl of Breadalbane took up again the letter from the Master of Stair, Sir John Dalrymple, who was perhaps at the moment the most powerful Scot of all because he had King William’s ear. It did not please Breadalbane that he did not know such grace, but at least Stair consulted him. At least Stair valued him. If for no other reason than to use me; well, let it be so—I will use him as he uses me; I will use Glenlyon, I will use his daughter, I will use anyone I must!

  The letter had arrived a fortnight before; he read it several times each day. He scanned it again now, despite the fact he could repeat it word for word. “. . . wherefore it is suggested that perhaps a peace may be won by means outside of a sword, in that certain rebellious clans may well value personal safety as well as silver. ”

  The earl understood very well what Stair was declaring: that the Crown would bribe the clans to go home and forget all about James and his doomed cause.

  Breadalbane stroked a fingertip along his bottom lip. Perhaps it was not doomed. Perhaps King William, more concerned with the Netherlands and France, might weaken his position in England through sheer neglect; he neither loved nor valued his wife’s patrimony beyond what it offered him against France.

  James was a stupid fool too much given to dismissing the true power of his subjects, but he was nonetheless a direct descendant of royalty. James had clear claim to the Crown; he had lost it through personal and political ineptness—and the question of religion.

  Breadalbane quoted aloud. “. . . ‘that perhaps a peace may be won by means outside of a sword . . . ’ ”Perhaps it might be; only a fool would rule it out. Occasionally alternatives proved sounder than the initial idea or intent. Perhaps a peace could—

  A knock sounded at his door. When Breadalbane called for entry his gillie, Sandy, came into the room. He carried with him a sealed letter.

  Murray again—? The earl accepted the letter. Or Glenlyon—?—ah! Neither—He tore it open, scanned it quickly, then rose abruptly to his feet. It took effort to keep his tone steady, divulging nothing of what he felt. “Pack my things and have my coach prepared . . . I am bound for Edinburgh.”

  The gillie departed at once. Breadalbane, standing, dropped the soiled, much-creased letter to the table, where it landed atop Stair’s older correspondence. In view of the news just received, the earl saw no need to move on Stair’s suggestion.

  “Not yet,” he said aloud. “Silver will not attract such fools as MacDonalds while there is blood running on the braes.”

  Unless that silver be robbed from Campbells such as himself, or his kinsman Robin, with Breadalbane, Glenorchy, and Glen Lyon lands lying in the path of the wolf.

  “They will go home,” he mused. “In a week, a month, six weeks . . . the Glencoe-men will go home through my lands, and steal for themselves every Campbell cow as well as Campbell silver.”

  Another man might stay at Achallader and fight them. But the Earl of Breadalbane was not known for his fierceness in anything but wits and thriftiness; he hired others to fight for him. It was his task, then, to flee to Edinburgh and wait for winter to halt the warfare.

  For now the Highland Jacobites had won, but by spring William’s forces would return. The clans were at their weakest after a harsh winter; it was then the promise of silver might mean more than the promise of blood.

  There were things to do before rising, ways of making oneself presentable again as a true son of MacIain: Dair repinned the crusted plaid at one sho
ulder, settled the bonnet on hair too tousled for finger-combing, tucked Jean Stewart’s locket near sgian dhu, sorted out targe and claymore, and stood up carefully from the pallet.

  He had little about him save his weapons, his improving health, his bloodstained and sweat-soiled clothing. But he had survived the battle that had killed more than six hundred Highlanders at the first volley, and many others in subsequent hand-to-hand combat.

  It was time now to ride for Perth. Surely the fighting at Dunkeld was finished. He would meet with his kin and clansmen and offer what aid he could in the Jacobite cause before fall set in, bringing with it the first early snow that would, in its bounty, lock in Glencoe against intrusion—or, for that matter, prevent its inhabitants from visiting such lands as belonged to Campbells in search of bovine wealth.

  Clutching claymore and targe, Dair began the laborious journey from pallet to distant door. There will be others bound for Perth . . . I willna be alone—

  Yet even as he made the door and rounded it Dair fell back, jamming spine against lintel. The brief burst of pain high in his side as the claymore pommel knocked against the stone was quickly forgotten. There was shouting in the corridor and from outside as well; a mass of filthy men in tattered, bloodstained plaids wound its way up narrow stairs with other men in their arms, wrapped in plaids equally tattered, equally bloodstained, save in most cases the blood was red and wet instead of brown and dry.

  “Christ—” To give them room Dair scraped himself around the jamb, pressing himself against stone wall inside the chamber as clansmen carried into the makeshift infirmary a new host of wounded and dying. He saw his own pallet filled immediately by a man scarcely more than a lad, with the swollen flesh of his forearm cut away to expose shattered bone.

  Dair had grown accustomed to the odor of sick and dying men, but the stink was fresh again with a new recipe: blood-soaked and smoky wool; singed hair; the effluvia of the dying, helpless to tend themselves; burned and rotting flesh.

  He took a step from the wall, clutching targe and claymore yet feeling impotent. “What has happened?”

  But no man answered him, too busy to spare even a single word. Still more wounded were carried into the chamber until all the pallets were filled. Plaids were spread, or bodies placed on bare stone. Clansmen squatted, murmuring to the wounded; others set about stripping limbs of makeshift bandages to inspect journey-plagued wounds.

  Dair’s throat was tight. Into the din of the dying he shouted but three words: “Fraoch Eilean! Maclain!”

  Heads came up at the shout, answering the ancient slogan. A kneeling man near the door, a MacDonald of Keppoch by his clan badge, twisted his head to display a smoke-blackened face. His teeth flashed white in a grime-smeared mask. “Whole. I saw him as we left Dunkeld.” A brief, humorless smile jerked the blistered corners of his mouth. “ ’Tis hard to miss that man.”

  “And my brother? John MacDonald of Glencoe?”

  “Didna see him with Maclain.” The clansman hawked, spat out blackened phlegm, then shrugged. “Canna say. We left Dunkeld as we could.”

  “Then the others have gone on to Perth?”

  The Keppoch MacDonald shook his head. “We willna go to Perth, so the lairds have said. The streets of Dunkeld are full of our dead . . . why waste more at Perth?”

  Dair nodded his head in thanks, then went into the corridor, intent on finding his father.

  “MacDonald!” A hand on Dair’s arm jerked him to a painful halt. “Christ, Jean will skelp me; you’re thin as a sapling, man!”

  “Robbie?” Dair bent long enough to set aside targe and claymore in a clatter against the floor, then clutched Stewart’s shoulders. “I heard my father fares well enough, but what of John?”

  “A bit scorched around the edges, but—” Robbie’s voice was hoarse. His grin faded as he clasped Dair’s rigid arms. “Dinna fash yourself—they are both of them whole and well.”

  Dair wobbled as nervous tension spilled away. He collapsed against the wall, unmindful of his sore rib. “Christ . . . Christ, Robbie—” The rush of relief was so powerful it set his limbs to trembling. —early calf, again—“What happened? Why have we turned back from Perth?”

  Stewart stank of smoke and charred flesh, though it was not his own. “They fired the town.”

  “Dunkeld?”

  “They burned it down.” Robbie shook his head; blue eyes blazed like pockets of flame in the filth of his face. “Their own dwellings, they burned to the ground—”

  “The Cameronians?” Dair nearly gaped. “I thought you meant we burned—”

  Robbie shook his head. “We went into the town after three hours of hard fighting, but the Cameronians waited until we were inside the dwellings and put locks on the door, then set them afire. They meant us to perish in the flames of hell, they said. Covenanting fools; religion isna worth dying for.” He raised a forearm and scrubbed his forehead against it, smearing soot and dirt down his nose and one cheek. “Dunkeld is naught but a smoking heap of split stone and charred wood.” He paused. “And bodies.”

  “Ours?”

  “Ours. Theirs. Too many.” Robbie’s face was grim, his blistered mouth set tautly. Sparks had left a scattering of black pockmarks high on one cheekbone. “ ‘’Tis over, Alasdair Og. Too many dead all at once before winter . . . we need to go home and see to our holdings before the first snow.” He licked swollen lips carefully. “The lairds are to sign a bond to come together again in the field should common safety or King James’s cause require it, but for the time being we’re done wi’ fighting.”

  Stewart’s eyes closed briefly. His news now had been passed, his fears laid to rest; Dair could see the exhaustion in Stewart’s face and posture as his broken-nailed hands twitched from dissipated tension on the end of arms rigid as wood. “Robbie—”

  But Stewart went on. The raggedness of slurred words had no birth in whisky or wine. “Colonel Cannon sends us home for the winter . . . on the way we’re to see to it we take our pay out of Campbell lands . . . burn Achallader, he says, and plunder all of Breadalbane’s holdings.” His grin was swift and ferocious, heedless of blistered mouth. “As if we needed an order to do such to Campbells!”

  Sunlight slanted through warped shutters, falling in a diagonal slash keen as a claymore blade across the lid of the leather-bound trunk. Cat knelt before it, hesitated, then deftly undid the hasp. Dust motes danced as she settled the lid quietly against the wall. Light glinted grimy green and dull gold off verdigrised brass studs.

  Cat paused a moment, clutching the battered leather stripping with rigid fingers, then dug down through the clothing. She felt the hardness, fingered the shape, hesitated, then drew it forth hastily so she would not change her mind. But before looking into the cracked surface, or even at it, Cat pressed the mirror’s face against her breast.

  “A wee look, no more . . .” Yet she could not bring herself to it. No indication from anyone—father, brothers, tacksmen, gillies, clansmen or Una—led her to believe the mirror would display any single feature worth examining, merging together one by one to form a whole that someone, anyone —even me!—might find pleasing.

  In the day she did not care. In the night she cared too much, dreaming of the enemy whose supple tongue, instead of praising in empty flattery a nonexistent beauty, had in its honesty offered her hope.

  She had never lost sight of that hope. Wine, they said, improved with age; could not the same be said of people?

  There was the water, of course, forming its own mirror, giving back a burnwater interpretation of Catriona Campbell, but this was a true mirror, brought by her father from Edinburgh to Lady Glenlyon years before, cracked now with age, its ivory yellowed and brittle, but nonetheless better than water. In a surface ever smooth, always unvaried, she would see the real Cat Campbell.

  “A wee peek, no more—” She jumped as the door downstairs was flung open and crashed against the wall. Jamie—? Her eldest brother never opened a door quietly when a bang announced hi
m better. The noise was Jamie’s, but if it were, he had come home early. It was the edge of fall; Cat was alone at Chesthill, save for Una. The other women were yet on the summer shielings, preparing to come home, while the men tended the harvest.

  “Chruachan!” cried the voice.

  —not Jamie—Nor her father, nor Una. A lad. A lad she did not know.

  Cat dropped the mirror, heedless of fragile glass, and ran for the stairs. She did not run away from the cry but to it, as a Campbell should, and by the time she was down the stairs she realized only one thing would bring a crofter lad into the laird’s house unexpected or unannounced, save for shouting the Campbell war cry.

  Barefoot, in breeks and saffron-dyed shirt, Cat stopped on the stairs but two steps from the bottom, brought up short by naked steel.

  “MacDonalds—” the boy at the door croaked, but she had no need of him. She knew very well who they were and what they wanted, with the tip of a claymore blade dancing coyly at her throat.

  “Some, forbye,” the swordsman said, “but no’ all.” He put up a hand and beckoned Cat, waggling imperious fingers. “Come here to me, lass . . . come here ”—more intently, as she stiffened to spin and run—“or I’ll have a taste of your flesh.”

  He meant it; she felt the cold kiss of steel as it touched the thumb-sized hollow splitting her collarbones. If she so much as swallowed, she could be cut.

  “To me,” he said, and moved the blade minutely as she descended a single step. His grin was white-toothed in a grimy, spark-pocked face. “Aye, one by one, and slowly—have you a dirk behind your back?”

  She did not. She wished she had. Another step . . . Careful inhalation; a fierce self-admonition not to tremble, lest the sword tip scratch her flesh, nor to show her fear lest he take pleasure from it. She stood on the stone floor now, cool against callused bare soles, and was supremely surprised to discover she was taller than he.

  Clearly so was he; blue eyes blinked, sandy brows arched, and he laughed. His lips, she saw, had been burned enough to blister; minute peelings of dead skin curled up from newborn flesh. “Christ, lass—” He paused. “Are you a lass?” A broken-nailed hand caught at the folds of her shirt even as he shifted the blade aside. “Are there duckies beneath the cloth?”