Highland Betrayal

by Markland, Anna

  She watched him go, then considered the half-full buckets. Esther wouldn’t be pleased, but she’d no coin left to draw more water. She stooped to once again lift the yoke. She’d simply blame the shortage on Solomon.

  Her amusement faded quickly when she thought seriously about the Jew’s warning. Someone had discovered Maggie’s secret—a secret so well hidden not even Hannah had been aware of it.

  Had the English spy seen her and Maggie together?

  She made her way back to the camp, eyeing every person she passed with suspicion. To her surprised relief, Esther paid her wages without complaint.

  As dusk fell, it dawned on her she’d left her shawl in Morgan’s room. That’s what came of daydreaming about a man’s touch while dressing. She hadn’t missed the garment during the heat of the tiring day. Rubbing the chill away from her upper arms, she set off in the direction of the inn, excited by the prospect of sharing Morgan’s warmth.

  She hurried along the shore road, anxious to reach the safety of the inn before darkness fell. She was within sight of the door when someone grasped her wrist and dragged her into the shadows at the side of the building.

  A callused hand clamped over her mouth and a heavy male body pressed her against the wall. Fear skittered up her spine. She recognized the man’s odor before he spoke.

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Pritchard teased, shoving his thigh between her legs.

  She tried to turn away from his foul breath, but he held firm. “I know what you are. I overheard you with Maggie. I turned her in, but I’ve something sweeter in mind for you.”

  When he dug demanding fingers into her breast she sank her teeth into the hand covering her mouth. He cursed and grabbed her throat. “Behave, wench, lest you tempt me to implicate the handsome captain in your plotting. His arrogant head would look might fine atop a pikestaff.”

  “What do ye want?” she choked out as fear for Morgan turned her blood to ice.

  He chuckled, squeezing her nipples hard. “You’ll find out.”

  Then he was gone.

  Her trembling knees buckled and she sank to the ground with a whimper, her back scraping the rough stone wall. For long minutes she sat in the darkness, breasts heaving as she frantically plotted a means of escape from the trap Pritchard had sprung.

  The cretin meant to destroy Morgan in retaliation for the episode at the burn. She couldn’t allow that to happen. She’d known the risks of rebellion from the beginning. Morgan’s only crime was that he’d fallen in love with a traitor. Tears finally flowed when she accepted that truth. He loved her. But war and conflicting loyalties made this the wrong time to contemplate a future. Flight was the only answer.

  ~~~

  Pushing the remnants of a fish skeleton around his plate, Morgan counted the seconds until he could be free to return to his room and Hannah’s embrace.

  He clenched his jaw when he overheard Jenkinson loudly complaining to a group of his fellow officers about the poor job Morgan’s crew had done of maintaining the “pathetic saker”.

  The only thing that kept him in his seat was that he alone among Abbott's officers hadn’t been obliged to cede his room to Hartlock's men. Jenkinson had made no bones about his refusal to sleep in a cupboard.

  When they were finally dismissed in consideration of the morrow’s early start, Morgan’s feet dragged, though he longed to see Hannah again. Could he spend the night making love to her without revealing the army intended to march the Elsick trail, not the Causey Mounth? She’d hate him for keeping the information to himself once she found out, especially if the English were ultimately successful in routing the rebels.

  Or mayhap she already knew?

  He’d anticipated being on opposing sides would test their relationship, but now the reality stood like a wall between them.

  He refused the innkeeper’s offer of a lantern and made his way in the dark to the door of his room. He reached for the handle, reasoning it would be better if she wasn’t there, but his heart hoped desperately that her bright smile would greet him when he entered.

  He stepped inside, closed the door quickly and sank down on the mattress. He wasn’t surprised she hadn’t come, yet her unique scent lingered. When his eyes became accustomed to the dim light, he espied her shawl hanging on the iron bedstead. He gathered it into his hands, curled up on the lonely bed and buried his nose in the familiar wool. “Farewell, Hannah, my own, my darling,” he whispered, numbed by the bitter possibility he would never see her again.

  ~~~

  Hannah’s instinct was to run as fast as her feet would carry her to Solomon’s wagon, but that might attract too much attention. She forced herself to walk, quickening her pace in the darker stretches between pools of light cast by the torches along the shore road.

  Breathless, she burst into the Jacobs’ shelter, halting abruptly when she found Solomon and his wife with their heads bent in prayer.

  Solomon looked up. “We are about to eat. Would you like to join us?” he asked, his face betraying no hint of apprehension.

  Hannah briefly wondered if Esther was ignorant of her husband’s clandestine activities, but dismissed the notion as improbable. “’Twas Pritchard,” she exclaimed.

  He frowned. “The musketeer?”

  She nodded, inhaling deeply to steady her rapidly beating heart. “He overheard me and Maggie.”

  Esther beckoned her to their table. “Shalom, child. Sit.”

  “If he knows you are a Royalist, why did he not denounce you?” Solomon asked.

  Esther sneered. “Because he lusts for her, silly man.”

  Hannah nodded. Her face was already flushed from her hurried walk, so her embarrassment perhaps wasn’t obvious. “He tried to rape me once before,” she explained hoarsely. “Morgan prevented it.”

  Solomon raised a thin eyebrow. “So he bears your captain ill will.”

  She hesitated. There was no reason for the Jew to care what happened to Morgan, but she didn’t have anyone else to turn to. “He intends to destroy us both.”

  Solomon drummed his bony fingers on the small table for what seemed like an eternity. She wanted him to stop, yet the rhythm was strangely comforting. “I detest Cromwell and his army,” he said finally, clasping his wife’s hand, “but I should not like to see a man unjustly charged with treason simply because he is in love with a beautiful woman.”

  The fleeting look of adoration that passed between the Jew and his wife spoke of trials and tribulations Hannah could only guess at. They had persevered, but it was foolish to foster hopes for her and Morgan. “Nor I,” she whispered. “I stayed away from him so he won’t be tainted. I must get to Bouchmorale to warn my uncle. If Pritchard has told the English of the gathering, they might change course.”

  “The troops have already received the order to take the Elsick trail at dawn on the morrow.”

  Now Hannah understood Morgan’s earlier despondency. He knew. Would he have forewarned her if she’d spent the night with him? She doubted it and admired him all the more. “Then I must leave tonight,” she said. “Pritchard willna follow me out of Stonehyve for fear of a charge of desertion.”

  Solomon rubbed his chin whiskers. “I can provide you with food and warmer clothes.”

  She remembered her shawl and was glad she’d left something of herself with Morgan. “I thank ye,” she murmured.

  “You’re a brave lass,” he replied, “but you don’t know the trail. You’ll need a guide. Esther will go with you.”

  Hannah expected protests from Medusa, but the shrew merely nodded. “Don’t worry about Pritchard,” she said. “Solomon will take care of him. He doesn’t like men who defile women.”

  KEEPSAKE

  Not long ago, Hannah had walked from Dùn Fhoithear to Kinneff in utter darkness. The fear pulsing in her heart then had been caused by the precious burden she carried; the path was a familiar one she’d trodden several times in preparation.

  This night’s full moon shone brightly on th
e Elsick Trail, but she didn’t understand how it was Esther seemed to know her way. The older woman strode ahead as if they were out for a hike in the middle of the afternoon.

  Having spent the day carrying water, Hannah still felt the weight of the yoke across her shoulders and it was difficult to summon the strength to keep up to Esther’s pace.

  Her guide had given her a shawl to replace her own, but she soon had it tied around her waist. Midges buzzed in the heat of a balmy summer’s night. The distant howl of a wolf stole Hannah’s breath away, but Esther chuckled, patting Solomon’s pistol shoved incongruously in the belt of her shift. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I know how to use this, but he’s not interested in us. He’s off to quench his thirst in Cowie Water.”

  Hannah followed the direction of her gesture to where moonbeams rippled on a distant stream. “How do you know this trail so well?” she finally had the courage to ask.

  Esther paused to take a swig from a water canteen slung across her body. “There’s others besides soldiers need sustenance and the services sutlers provide. Before the war, Solomon and I followed the drovers along here for many a year. I’m not sure which is worse, eating the dust raised by cattle or army boots.”

  She flashed a brief smile; at least Hannah thought it may have been a smile. Glad of a chance to rest, she surveyed the empty landscape. “Were they big herds?”

  “Big enough. Driven from the breeding grounds up north to the markets in Auchenblae and further south. They’ll resume once we’ve rid ourselves of Cromwell.”

  Part of the fog concerning the Jacobs’ loyalties cleared. Hannah had thought of the pair as foreigners because they were Jewish. They may have lived in Scotland longer than she’d been alive. However, she sensed she’d delved deeply enough into Medusa’s private life when her guide set off again with the declaration they’d soon come to Lang Stane.

  Hannah hurried to catch up. “A standing stone?”

  “Pictish,” came the enigmatic reply. “Folk reckon it was here thousands of years before the Romans came.”

  “Romans?” Hannah repeated, feeling she was back with her tutors in Kilmer.

  “They built a sizeable camp yonder. Raedykes, it’s called. They say this trail originally linked it with another camp further north.”

  It seemed unlikely Roman legions had marched in this desolate place, but Hannah wasn’t about to express her doubts. She wrapped the shawl tighter round her shivering shoulders when the standing stone loomed in the distance. Even from afar it appeared eerily massive in the moonlight.

  When they reached the monolith, Hannah craned her neck to look up to where Esther pointed. “Ogham symbols, see?”

  “I can make out lines in a sort of square and circles on the corners,” she replied.

  “Directions for ancient travellers,” Esther explained, settling in the grass with her back against the stone. “We’ll eat here.”

  It was an ominous place to sit, but then Hannah reasoned Medusa could likely intimidate even a block of stone.

  She touched a hand to the rough surface of the rock, achingly aware Morgan would soon pass by this mysterious place.

  They shared bread, cheese, watered ale and cold rabbit while Esther talked on about the hundreds of stone circles, megaliths and burial mounds to be found in the vicinity. Hannah began to think she should have called on this resourceful woman to help with the rescue of the regalia. She probably knew better hiding places than the church at Kinneff.

  After their meal, they resumed the same pace, passing through Strathgyle Wood, then climbed gradually to a stone circle. “Clune,” Esther told her, not even out of breath.

  “What a view,” Hannah panted as dawn painted grey streaks in the sky over distant hills and valleys.

  “Cromwell’s army will be setting out,” Esther said. “They’ll make slow progress with the heavy artillery they’re pulling, but we must keep going.”

  For Hannah the words served as a poignant reminder of her loss. She wished she had some token of Morgan—a lock of his golden hair mayhap—but memories of the brief time she’d spent with him would have to suffice. “How much further?” she asked, brushing away an errant tear.

  “Quite a ways, but we have comrades in Beannchar. Then we won’t have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

  It was the best news Hannah had heard all night.

  ~~~

  Once Smythe had helped him dress—no easy task in the confines of the tiny room—Morgan looked through the window and toyed with the notion of visiting the civilian camp, just to say goodbye to Hannah and to explain. But what was the use? She understood as well as he did that there was no future for them.

  He looked up the street and noticed the Jew’s wagon outside the Tolbooth. He watched Solomon unload sacks onto the shoulders of two army cooks who carried them into the prison.

  “You’re getting oatmeal for breakfast, sir,” Smythe observed from near his elbow.

  Two small barrels were then hefted off the wagon and rolled into the building.

  “You’re perhaps right,” he told his batman, “though I can’t think what’s in the barrels.”

  “I hear the Scots distill good whisky,” Smythe offered with a sly smile.

  Morgan laughed. “That should make for an interesting journey,” he replied.

  Smythe nodded. “It’s as well Freddie…er…Major Jenkinson insisted his men be responsible for transporting all the gunpowder.”

  “Indeed!”

  Having completed his deliveries, Solomon drove his wagon over to the end of the dock and waited. After last night’s announcement of a change of course, opinions had been expressed that few civilians would follow the army into the Grampians once it became evident they weren’t going to Aberdeen. The possible pending shortage of whores seemed to be the biggest concern voiced by the men.

  Apparently, the Jew intended to follow the army though Morgan thought it odd the man’s wife wasn’t in evidence. Perhaps it was too early in the day for her to be up and about.

  He hadn’t expected to see Hannah with them, but was disappointed nonetheless. It appeared she wouldn’t be travelling the Elsick Trail. Mayhap she’d fled home, or to the next rebel target.

  His heart lurched. Did she know about Bouchmorale? Surely she wouldn’t go there?

  Agitated, he tossed his knapsack to his servant. “Take good care of that,” he ordered.

  Smythe looked crestfallen. “I always do, sir.”

  It was true, but Morgan had stuffed Hannah’s shawl into the bag before Smythe’s arrival. It was the only tangible keepsake he had to remind him of their time together. He slapped the boy on the back and swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes, of course you do. I’m off for my hearty breakfast. Dismissed.”

  He exited the inn and walked over to the Tolbooth, noticing out of the corner of his eye that Solomon was no longer sitting on the front-board of his wagon. He assumed the sutler had gone off to procure something for the journey.

  Excited chatter and a fishy odor greeted him in the upper room. The mysterious barrels had contained herring. “Fish for breakfast,” he muttered under his breath as he took an empty seat at one of the tables.

  He declined the herring. Every spoonful of the porridge he was served reminded him of the meal he and Hannah had shared in his tent. He’d known then she was the one.

  He finished his food quickly, made his excuses and headed out for the fields behind the prison. Preparing men, horses, ammunition and weaponry for a long journey always required concentration and he needed to get his mind off the precious jewel he’d lost.

  At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about the kegs of gunpowder. With any luck Jenkinson might blow himself up.

  ~~~

  Hannah stared at the bowl of oatmeal the crofter’s wife set in front of her, afraid she might nod off part way through eating and fall face forward into the porridge.

  A mucky faced urchin perched on a nearby stool pulled at her shawl. “Ye dinna like po
rridge, mistress?” he asked.

  “She’s just tired, lad,” Esther explained from across the table, pushing aside her empty bowl. “Eat up, lass. You can sleep in Angus’s hay wagon. It’ll take most of the day for him to get you to Bouchmorale. You’ll need your strength.”

  Her words penetrated Hannah’s sleep-deprived brain. “Ye’re nay coming with us?”

  “No,” Esther replied. “I’ll bide here in Beannchar until Solomon comes through with the wagon.” She tousled the bairn’s flame-red curls. “I haven’t seen Duncan and Feena for a long while. It’s a chance to visit.”

  Hannah supposed it made sense, but she wished she could spend the day in the cozy cottage and not in a lumbering hay wagon pulled by an ox. However, Angus had already hitched up the beast and was waiting outside.

  The oatmeal brought memories of the meal she’d shared with Morgan. Meeting him had changed her. She felt his loss keenly and grieved they’d met under such impossible circumstances. Her first loyalty was to her uncle and the Royalist cause, but she prayed for Morgan’s safety as the army marched on Bouchmorale.

  She expressed her gratitude to the crofter’s wife, pecked a kiss on the bairn’s forehead, then reached for Esther’s hand. “I thank ye for the celebration in yer tent,” she whispered. “I’ll ne’er forget it.”

  Snake-like tendrils bobbed as Medusa nodded. “God willing, you’ll dance with him again. Shalom.”

  Choking back tears, Hannah left the cottage and accepted Angus’s help to climb into the back of his wagon, where she burrowed into the mound of damp hay and wept.

  CONFIDENCES

  Morgan had expected his unit would be summoned to fall in behind Hartlock's artillery camped half a mile away on the banks of the Dee, but it was well past dawn, and they were still waiting in the field behind the Tolbooth. He’d a niggling feeling the slight was deliberate on Jenkinson’s part.