by Jane Yolen
Everyone but me laughed again, the prince heartiest of all. It seemed an odd thing to do, laughing about being drunk, when all about us lay danger. I suppose after all these months, the prince and his friends had become used to this outlaw life, but I doubted I ever could.
Angus Ban must have understood my concern, for he clapped me on the shoulder. “Have ye never heard it said, lad, ‘Laugh at leisure, ye may weep at night?’”
Indeed I had. “My ma says it often, sir. Usually when there’s plenty to weep about.”
They laughed even harder.
The pheasants were cut into small portions and given us to eat by hand, along with some stale bread and a few crumbs of cheese. The prince ate a whole piece of white breast meat, sitting on one of the two stools in the bothy. Lochiel sat on the other. Everyone else stood around, sharing the rest of the pheasant. Even Cluny’s retainers had a bite. It was the best meat I’d ever had, even if it was only a couple of bites.
Once the meager meal was over, and everyone had wiped their hands on their plaids or breeches, Angus Ban gave me a nudge. “Give the prince what ye have, lad, and tell him yer name.”
The prince looked up at me. “Have? Have?” He shook his head. “Do I understand this have?” But he said it smiling.
Cautiously I approached him. My heart was hammering as hard as it ever had in battle. I held out the brooch.
“What is this? I recognize this.” The prince turned to Lochiel. “Do I recognize this?”
Lochiel leaned forward to see what was in my hand.
“I am Duncan MacDonald of Glenroy, my lord. This comes from the Keppoch MacDonald. He died for ye, sire.” I glanced quickly back at Angus Ban, who nodded for me to continue. “His widow says that …” I hesitated, trying to remember exactly what she’d said, though I remembered her face clearly. “That ye’d have greater need than any of us for it.” I took a deep breath and the rest came out all in a rush. “And she said that ye could use it as a charm or sell it for food or use it as a bribe, and her prayers go with it.”
The prince took the brooch in his hand and admired how it shone in the glow of the hearth fire. “This lion, he reminds me of the old Keppoch himself,” he mused. “Steady-eyed and brave.” He suddenly seemed of two minds whether to accept the thing. “This was a gift,” he said, “and surely must pass to the widow, or to you, Angus, the son.”
I wondered what Angus Ban would say. For how does one say no to a prince?
Angus Ban waved the brooch away. “I knew my father’s mind, my prince, and if he were here among us now, he would press the brooch upon ye with all the strength he had. There may be one last favor needed to get Yer Highness to safety, a favor that canna be bought by loyalty but gold would make the difference.”
“It’s true, true,” the prince answered solemnly, “that on a few occasions, when I was out of money, there were those unwilling to shelter me.” He smiled wryly. “Though how can I blame such poor souls? They feared the fire and the lash.”
For a minute I was furious. “Some refused their prince shelter?” I said. “What of Highland hospitality? What of honor?” And then, remembering how only that morning I was hoping the prince would soon be gone, and no longer endangering Scottish lives, I felt deeply ashamed. I was lucky the fire was already too low for anyone to see my cheeks burn with the memory.
“Well said, lad,” Lochiel interrupted, “but remember there’s nae Highlander who’s spoken a word to put the redcoats on the prince’s trail, neither for fear nor greed.”
The prince turned the brooch over in his fingers. “It is true there’s a march of hazards ahead,” he said, “and a bauble like this might serve me well.” He looked directly at me. “I’ll keep it for now, and I’ll remember your honesty, young Highlander. Duncan, you say?”
At the mention of the march, the men all suddenly turned to business and I was no longer in the prince’s eye. We made a circle around the prince and Lochiel, shoving the table to one side. The doctor poked up the fire with a stick and it flared to life again.
“What’s the route?” asked Angus Ban.
“North and west,” replied Lochiel, “to my house at Achnacarry. Or what’s left of it since Cumberland’s men passed that way recently. Only we must go over the hills and not along the main roads.”
“Of course,” Angus Ban agreed. “If your poor legs can manage.
Lochiel gave him a dark look. “They’ll manage.”
“Then we should go soon,” said Cluny, making a fist of his right hand, “and use the cover of night. Sleep will be a luxury. No telling how long the ship can wait for us. Days perhaps. A week may be too long.”
“How will we find our way at night?” I asked. I said we, though I didn’t really expect to be taken along.
“That’s why we need men who know the country well,” said Cluny. “McNab for here, and ye others as we go further west. Even ye, laddie. A body on his own land is the real jewel in the prince’s hand. Not that bauble, for all it’s a pretty thing and well meant.”
I knew he was right, but still it rankled. For the widow’s sake, if not my own.
“Ye could stick a bag over McNab’s head and with his bare feet he could feel his way from here to Loch Trieg,” Angus Ban joked.
“Further,” said McNab in his growl of a voice.
It was just the right thing to say, for we all laughed heartily and any lingering tension about the coming trek west was immediately set aside. And I knew that I would go with them whatever the consequences.
36 JOURNEY BY MOONLIGHT
In fact we waited till after midnight before leaving the bothy. McNab had us take the time to bury the bones of the pheasants and scatter the ashes of the fire. We overturned the stools and set the table against the hearth. The place looked as if no one had been there for ages.
“I dinna expect the Butcher to find his way here,” McNab said, “but one canna be too careful.”
We left single file, with McNab, Cluny, and the prince at the fore, and Lochiel and his brother at the rear.
It was hard going for five hours, with black tree branches slapping us in the faces, and us startling at every sound. We got as far as another, even smaller, bothy, where we spent the bright hours of the day sleeping curled up on the floor. The little building echoed with snores.
I was soon ready to believe that Angus Ban had spoken in truth, not in jest, when he said McNab could lead us with a bag over his head. Even through the thickest of red pine woodlands, or over small heather-spattered mountains, or down the narrow glens where water gushed over rocks into tumbling cataracts, he led us as surely as if the sun were shining. I wondered if I would be so certain of the way when we reached Glen Roy and it was my turn to lead. Of course, I knew the shieling meadow well, and the paths up and down into the village. And I knew how to go around the Gloaming Pool. Well around, for Mairi’s spirit still haunted that place. But as for the rest … well, I would worry about that later. For now I had trouble enough keeping my head down and watching where my feet were planted.
The only delays we had were when we rested from time to time to allow Lochiel to catch up. Leaning on his brother’s shoulder, he made a manly effort for one who’d been so badly crippled, and I never heard him complain. In fact, Lochiel was always the first to insist we carry on, even though the prince urged him to spare himself.
“Ye’ll need me to get across to Achnacarry,” was all Lochiel answered.
Several times the prince tried to move on before the men thought it safe, and he was cautioned by them all.
“We canna be sure where Cumberland’s men will be,” Angus Ban explained.
“Or the Butcher himself,” Lochiel added.
Each time the prince heard them out, then turned and smiled at me, shrugging. “Young Highlander,” he said, as if he’d forgotten my name, “I have been through this before. These men are not so much my subjects but my councilors. I must be ruled by them.”
One time, overhearing him, Angus Ban
told me, “The prince is rightfully fearful that an English patrol might find the ship before we get there. So we must hurry. But not”—and he turned to the prince—“without caution, sir.”
Prince Charlie put up his hands and smiled. “Am I not the most cautious of men, young MacDonald?” he said to me.
“But this may be your last, best chance, sir,” I said, thinking about the French ship.
“This may be Scotland’s last, best chance,” Prince Charlie said.
By morning we had reached the Forest of Moy, a tangle of pine and larch, beech and birch. We used the shelter of the trees to continue our journey. But at noon we finally stopped for a brief but welcome rest. I was so tired that every now and then I simply nodded off, still walking.
Angus Ban caught my arm. “Soon, lad,” he told me, “soon. We’re very near Glen Roy. Ye’ll be needed then. I know the lower part, but it’s up in the high trails we’ll want yer help. And when ye’ve got us to the other side, we’ll send ye home again.”
At our resting place that time, Lochiel was persuaded to sit a bit, his brother beside him. But Cluny paced the while as if he feared once down, he’d never rise up again. Only Iain refused to stop, going on ahead to scout.
As soon as Iain returned with the news that all was clear, and not a redcoat in sight, Angus Ban had us up and on the move again. Archie helped Lochiel to stand, neither of them betraying any pain on their faces.
Surprisingly, the prince was the most energetic of us all, always ready for the march to continue, always ready with a smile. I watched him often, as he spoke to one man after another. It made me like him, how he disguised his own weariness for the sake of us all. Surely there must have been times, during his months escaping the English across the Highlands, when he felt as miserable and alone as I had making my way back from Culloden.
It is his concern for those about him, I suddenly realized, that makes him a great prince. And then I had a further thought: He will make a great king.
Thinking that made me smile ruefully to myself. He would make no king at all if we didn’t get him to his ship in time.
By that evening, with a clear sky and an almost full moon beaming down on us, we’d passed by broken walls of crag and cliff. We’d crossed sodden meadows, fed by water tumbling in white tracks down the mountainsides.
Finally we arrived at the eastern foothills of Glen Roy. I’d never come upon it this way before.
“What is that?” asked the prince of Angus Ban, pointing to a place where something had cut under a tussocky plateau.
“We call those the Glen Roy beaches,” Angus Ban said.
The prince laughed. “Beaches? And no ocean for many miles.”
“They say that there was once a lake here, and when it dried up, it left parallel beaches behind.”
I’d never heard of any such thing before, and wondered that the world—even my familiar part of it—should be so wide. Then I thought how the familiar hillsides looked almost sinister in the growing dark.
We were all exhausted, though none showed it as much as Lochiel, who was pale and drawn, the bones of his skull clearly outlined on his handsome face.
Angus Ban called a halt. “We’ll stay here and set out again before dawn.” He glanced at the prince, who nodded his agreement. “Since we’ll be high enough in the glen to escape the attention of the redcoats, we should be able to make good time. With luck, we’ll reach Loch Lochy by nightfall. There should be several small rowing boats on the loch, and once across, we are but short miles to Lochiel’s home.”
Crossing all of the glen is easy enough to do on the broad road by the Keppoch’s house. But it would be hard going, being that quick while scrambling over the hills. Angus Ban was making a plan by what he knew. But if the lower glen was his country, the high glen was mine. Even by daylight the way might be hazardous. And once we left the part of the high glen that I knew, I’d be guessing which way was easiest, fastest, best. I wondered if I should say anything to them about my fears.
“Another day only,” the prince said, smiling. “That is good, dear Angus.”
“Another day only to Lochiel’s,” McNab reminded him. “Then three more days till the coast.”
“Have we time? Have we time?” the prince asked.
“We have time, sir,” Angus Ban said.
After that promise, I didn’t dare say anything. I bit my lower lip and thought: If I set my back to the east and head due west, I can manage.
The prince started to climb toward higher ground. “Can we see the loch from up there?” he asked.
Angus Ban quickly blocked his way. “The moon’s nearly full, my prince,” he said, “and as of last week, Lord Loudon’s camp of redcoats wasna far distant. Ye could be too easily spotted up there.”
The prince looked disappointed and reluctantly turned back. Catching my eye, he shrugged, smiled, and whispered, “My council again.”
This time I smiled back. Who could resist him? I wondered if princes were born to that charm, or had to learn it. Then I remembered that Butcher Cumberland was King George’s youngest son, which meant he was a prince, too. No charm there, I told myself with a shiver.
Before we wrapped ourselves in our plaids and curled up for the night, Prince Charlie unaccountably came over and sat by me. He took off his bonnet and his wig and gave his scalp a vigorous rub.
“I swear, lad, there’s more lice and midges than grains of sand in this country.”
“Ye’ll be glad to be gone then,” I said.
“Glad? No,” he answered, replacing his wig. “This is my father’s kingdom. And mine. When I was your age, I learned about Scotland and England from the finest tutors. I knew always that one day I would have to come here to win back the stolen throne.” He gave me another smile, this one less charming and more full of regret. “To come here was not so hard. But to win the throne back—ah, that has not been easy.” He got a faraway look in his eyes. “I expected to rule this land someday, not to love it. But love it I do.”
“I love it, too, sir.”
He leaned toward me. “Then we have much in common, young MacDonald.”
Suddenly, I realized he was right, though perhaps not in the way he thought. We were both lads who had gone to fight in our father’s places, and found the battle wasn’t quite what we’d reckoned on.
“Are ye so sure of yer kingdom now, sir?” I asked.
The prince glanced around at the rugged men in their muddied clothes who were settling down under the towering pines. Then, he watched a moment as a flock of peewits flew over. “Perhaps … perhaps there’s not much of a court here, but there’s never been braver subjects.”
“My da once said that courage begets courage,” I told him. “He said that nae man ever raced to follow a coward. And think how many brave men have followed ye across the country and into that far place where none return.”
Prince Charlie smiled at the compliment. “Stout lad,” he said. “You do not falter, even when grown men do.”
“Oh, I’ve stumbled, Yer Highness. And I’ve made a harder journey than this,” I said. “Much harder.” I said no more than that. It would have been unthinkable to remind him of Culloden now, adding past horror to the hard present.
Perhaps he was thinking of it anyway, for suddenly he gazed up at the moon and said, “I’ll pray God keeps us safe this night. Just the one more night till we cross the lake. You can be free of this particular danger then, boy.”
I must have looked startled. “Me?”
“Ah, yes—I know you leave us once we are at the loch. And I am glad for it, for you have much life ahead of you yet.” He smiled, just a young man now, thinking of his friend’s safety before his own.
“Just the one more night,” I repeated. Then I smiled back. “That reminds me …” I hesitated.
“Reminds you of what?”
I took a deep breath. “Of one of my granda’s stories.”
“A storyteller, eh?” said the prince. “All the stories I kn
ow come from books.”
“Not the ones my granda tells. They’re passed from lip to ear and from heart to heart, with nae paper in between.”
The prince chuckled good-naturedly. “And which heart-to-heart tale are you reminded of this last night?”
“The tale of Sandy MacDonald,” I said quickly. “He was a fisherman of the western isles. His wife Kate was the most beautiful girl in all Scotland.” I paused.
“Tell it to me, my brave Highlander.” It was a royal command.
Of course I had to continue. “One day,” I said, “when Sandy was out in his boat, he overheard a pair of sea imps plotting to steal his wife away that very night. They planned to leave a wooden image in her place.” I stopped to glance at the prince, afraid he might find the tale foolish to his sophisticated ears, or my telling weak.
He had pulled up his legs and was resting his chin on his knees. His eyes were fixed intently upon me and he looked for all the world like Andrew or Sarah sitting at Granda’s feet as he told his tales. Seeing this, I carried on with more confidence.
“Well, Sandy rowed right back to shore and raced home,” I said. “He barred the door, and shuttered the windows. He wouldna let his Kate go outside. That night the imps sneaked up to the door and in wheedling tones told Kate her husband was hurt and had need of her. Yet there he was beside her and she didna move. So they told her one of her friends was ill, and next that the byre—the barn—was on fire, and all manner of other lies meant to draw her out. But she didna go, for Sandy held her fast.”
The prince nodded, as if bidding me to go on. So I did.
“All that night—just that one night—he wouldna let her open the door. When the dawn came up, the voices stopped. Then he and his wife went outside together and there, in a corner of the yard, they came upon the stump of an old ship’s mast carved with such skill, it was the very likeness of Kate MacDonald.”
“I’m glad a happy ending came,” said the prince. “Sandy MacDonald deserved to keep his wife.”
“Aye, he did.”
I didn’t need to add that the prince’s friends—just like Sandy MacDonald in the story—had done all they could to keep him safe, sometimes in spite of himself. If he guessed it was what I meant, he didn’t say. But that wasn’t the only reason I’d thought of that particular tale. I’d been wondering which prince we would be left with at the end of our story. Would it be this caring young man, or the charming hero from across the sea?