“I keep expecting to see him walk up the hill, a smile on his face, an easy solution to all the world’s problems in the palms of his hands. God, how I took him for granted. I never realized how much I’d miss him, how much of a friend and brother he was to me.”
“I loved Aluinn too,” Catherine whispered. “He was a good friend to me—and Deirdre loved him so very much …”
“I can almost accept everything else—the fighting, the killing, the stupid, senseless waste … But not Aluinn’s death. I don’t want to believe it, and I can’t accept it. It never should have happened. Neither one of them should have died like that. One of the last things he said to me was how much he was looking forward to settling down to the life of an ordinary farmer, getting back to his roots, strolling into old age with a wife and children by his side …”
“Alex, don’t. Don’t do this to yourself. Aluinn MacKail would not have wanted you to torment yourself this way, just as you would not have wanted him to dwell on the tragedy, had it been the other way around.”
“But it wasn’t me who died,” he replied bitterly. “It should have been, but it wasn’t. Aluinn died because he was doing what he always did—guarding my back. I’m sure he never wanted to trail over half the world with me. He loved this place. He loved Scotland; he never wanted to leave. He went into exile with me only out of a sense of duty, and later, when he’d adapted to a life in Europe, he came away again only because I decided it was time to come back. I never asked him what he wanted to do. I never once asked him if he wanted to get involved in this bloody rebellion. He just came and fought and died.”
“Oh, Alex, you’re so wrong! He stayed with you because he was your friend and he wanted to stay with you.” She reached up and laid her trembling hands on his cheeks, sharing his despair. “You once told me, the only regrets we should have in life are for the things we have never done. I do not think Aluinn MacKail had any regrets. It was his choice to make to follow you into exile, his choice to return with you when you came back. As much as you might like to fancy yourself a tyrant and overlord, Aluinn was not afraid of you. If he had not wanted to spend all those years chasing ghosts with you, he wouldn’t have, and if he had not wanted to fight for what was fine and honorable about Scotland, he would not have walked onto the field at Culloden. Grieve for him, Alex, because he was a gentle and loving man, a compassionate man, a man who could find something to laugh about in the blackest hours. Cry for the loss, my love, because there will never be another Aluinn MacKail in our lives, or another Deirdre, or Damien, or Struan MacSorely. But as long as we can cry for them, and laugh with the memories, and share the gifts they left us with others, then they will always be a part of us. And in a way, so will Achnacarry.” She turned to watch the spiraling black clouds of smoke. “If we remember it as it was, tall and proud and strong, then it will always be there, just like the mist and the mountains and the heather on the moors.”
It was Alex’s turn to feel inadequate. She had expressed it so clearly and the sentiments were so pure, there was nothing he could do but cling to her and thank whatever fates had conspired to bring them together. A chance meeting in a clearing. An impulsive, last-minute detour through Derby by a man who rarely acted on impulse. A golden-haired English beauty and a roguish Highland soldier of fortune. Who would have thought it could work?
“Aluinn,” he murmured. “Aluinn predicted you would be the one to tame me, as far back as the inn at Wakefield.”
“Our Aluinn was a clever man,” Catherine agreed, not altogether certain what had inspired the statement, but happy nonetheless to see a faint gleam of amusement return to her husband’s eyes. He was going to be all right. Everything was going to be alright.
“Oh!” She gasped and pulled suddenly out of his arms.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
Catherine waited for the spasm to pass, then took his hand and pressed it over the hard swell of her belly.
“There. Can you feel him? Your son is reminding us not to leave him out of the conversation entirely.”
Alex tilted her mouth up to his. “In that case, if it is not too premature, I would like to put forth a name for his approval.”
“Too late, my lord,” she said, shaking her head. “I have already chosen all three names.”
“Three?”
“Aye, my lord. Aluinn Ewen mhac Alasdair. I warrant that should be a powerful enough charm for the son of the Camshroinaich Dubh to carry on down through history. One not even Aunt Rose’s dark gods could ignore.”
Author’s Notes
Both The Pride of Lions and The Blood of Roses are works of fiction, but it was impossible not to succumb to the temptation to use some of the actual people involved in the Jacobite uprising, for not even the most fertile of imaginations could improve upon their stories. The politics, policies, and conflicts are represented as accurately as the limits of the genre will allow. The Jacobite victories at Prestonpans and Falkirk were astonishing, as was the later disgrace perpetrated by Cumberland’s troops in the aftermath of Culloden: I could not, in all conscience, downplay, alter, or “soften” either representation.
One of the more prominent real characters I used was Donald Cameron, The Cameron of Lochiel. He played a crucial role in the decision of the clans as to whether to “come out” in the Forty-Five—as the rebellion later came to be known—or to abstain. His involvement in the rebellion and his active participation in the prince’s councils of war were very real, as were the heroic charges led by his Cameron clansmen at Prestonpans and Culloden. Lochiel survived the terrible wounds he received at Culloden that infamous day and did indeed witness the destruction of his magnificent castle at Achnacarry from a hiding place in the hills. He escaped Scotland on the same ship that carried Prince Charles to safety some months later, but he never quite recovered his health and died in France in 1748.
Dr. Archibald Cameron escaped with his brother but, against all advice, jeopardized his safety by repeatedly undertaking risky ventures back to Scotland on Jacobite business. In 1753 he won the dubious distinction of being the last prominent Jacobite to be arrested and hanged for his activities during the rebellion.
One of the more startling coincidences—and there were many—that seemed to come to me straight out of the twilight zone in the three years I spent researching and writing these two books concerned the creation of my hero, Alexander Cameron. Normally a matter of whimsy to choose the hero’s name—the task became a massive headache very early on when I discovered that one could not merely pluck a Scottish name out of the air and use it at will. Being distinctly territorial and violently feudal in nature, the clans of the Highlands were divided and contained within definite and incontrovertable borders. A man could be hanged on the spot, no questions asked, if he happened to stumble onto the land of a rival clan. Therefore, for example, one could not use the name Campbell where any one of the twenty or so affiliated branches of the Clan MacDonald resided. Add to this the political turmoil, heaven save the unknowing author who plunks a Jacobite MacBean in the land of Hanover Munroes (the width of a river apart). Factor in, as well, the religious dissention at the time and the open hostilities between Highlanders and Lowlanders, and you begin to see the maze I found myself in—also, the relief I felt when I located the Camerons, Donald and Archibald, and knew they belonged to exactly the clan I needed. The name Alexander came, well, trippingly off the tongue, and my imagination was free to provide him with a mysterious past, a long-forced exile on the Continent, a return to Scotland after fifteen years …
Imagine my shock when, some months deeper into the research, I discovered the existence of an actual Alexander Cameron, the younger brother of Donald and Archibald. So shadowy a figure was he that he was mentioned only once, but given to be a rogue and an exile with a mysterious past who had been absent on the Continent for fifteen years! I was not able to discover his fate; I can only hope it ran parallel to that of my Alexander and that he escaped and found happiness elsewhe
re.
Lord George Murray was able to smuggle himself out of Scotland some months after Culloden and arrived in Holland in December of 1746. Although he repeatedly appealed to the prince for an audience, Charles Stuart irrationally blamed his general for all his defeats and Lord George was never again permitted to come within the prince’s sight. Despite Charles’s unjustified and adamant bitterness toward him, Lord George remained loyal to the Stuarts, refusing to seek a pardon from the Hanover government when such was offered; he never again returned to his beloved Scotland, dying in Holland in 1760.
William O’Sullivan managed to escape on the first ship out of Scotland and, being first to recount his version of the events before the court of the exiled King James, he was lauded as a hero, knighted, and later rewarded with a baronetcy. Another of O’Sullivan’s cohorts, John Murray of Broughton, loudest in trumpeting his suspicions of Lord George’s ulterior motives toward the prince, was, ironically, the quickest to turn king’s evidence after his arrest and imprisonment. He informed on many of the chiefs and lords he had served with during the nine months of the rebellion and caused their subsequent arrest and hanging.
Struan MacSorley was a composite of several real characters, most notably Gilles MacBean—a giant of a man who fought valiantly and heroically to his last drop of blood. Colonel Anne Moy led her men onto the field at Culloden; her captain, the brave MacGillivray, died in the manner I have described, defending the retreat of the Jacobites.
A host of what might have seemed like incredible events actually happened, and—like the Rout of Moy, where a dozen screaming men frightened away fifteen hundred soldiers—were too good to ignore in unfolding the story of the rebellion. Others, like the forging of Lord George Murray’s battle orders, which contributed to the bloody and unconscionable slaughter of hundreds of helpless men on the field at Culloden, were too important to omit. Following the barbaric behavior of the government army on that day, King George’s son was known thereafter as Butcher Cumberland. In 1747 he returned to the Continent to resume the war in Flanders and was soundly defeated by the French. He died in 1765, obese and dissipated, and severely out of favor with King George III.
As for Charles Stuart, I found him to be anything but the romantic “bonnie prince” I had expected. He was young and impulsive, prone to throwing tantrums, a man ripe for disillusionment in that he knew how to dream but not how to accept reality. He did not recognize the stunning accomplishment of leading his ragtag army to within one hundred fifty miles of London; he saw only treachery and betrayal behind the move by his loyal generals and chiefs to try to salvage what remained of their credibility as a fighting force. Could they have taken London? Given the brilliance of Lord George Murray and the audacity of the men at his command, coupled with the arrogant shortsightedness of the English at the time, it might just have been possible. That they could have held the city or the throne against Cumberland’s combined forces and the blockade of the Royal Navy is pure fanciful thinking. Still, if they had tried and succeeded, even for a short occupation, one cannot help but speculate about the number of lives that would have been saved in a negotiated surrender in London rather than the agonized retreat and debacle at Culloden.
Following his escape from that battle, Charles Stuart was forced to hide in the hills and glens of the Highlands for several months, often only hours ahead of the diligent and determined government troops sent to hunt him down. It is to the enormous credit of the defeated, persecuted, hounded, and brutalized Highlanders that not one of them sought to collect the thirty-thousand-pound reward offered for the prince’s capture. Yet again Charles never folly appreciated their loyalty. He drank heavily to compensate for the discomforts suffered during his months of hiding and later decried the Highlanders’ lack of courage for not immediately reforming an army after Culloden. In succeeding years, he wandered through Europe appealing for help from monarchs and nobles but was never able to win any further support for his claim to the English throne. He became fat and morose from his drinking and debauchery, and died of a stroke in 1788.
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1989 by Marsha Canham
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