Near the end of the day, two of the men from the earlier visit, including the officer, came again, this time with two other strangers. They carried two lanterns with them, burning slow golden flames, which illuminated Dougal’s visitors just enough to hint at faces. This time the men stepped into the cell—or at least two of them did. There wasn’t enough room for all of them, and these two barely squeezed inside. Dougal was sitting when they arrived, and he remained where he was, glaring up at them, wondering if they warranted his standing.
“Filthy dog,” one of the men muttered. “Waste of our time.”
“Get up,” the leader said. Dougal gritted his teeth, and rose slowly to his feet. Here to decide a sentence outside of the courts, were they? He wouldn’t go easily. No, he knew what they could do, and he knew what he could do. Suddenly alert, his muscles buzzed with energy and his mind threw out ideas of how to shove through the men and escape. There would be no noose for Dougal MacDonnell.
The men stared back at him, saying nothing for a moment. Then the senior officer frowned and turned back toward one of the others standing in the doorway. “You’re sure?” he asked.
“Aye, sir,” came a voice. “I ken him well enough. Ye’d do best to watch yer step, sir, but ye’ll no’ find a better warrior.”
Dougal frowned. “I ken that voice,” he said softly, trying to remember. Shapes and shadows swirled in his head as he fought to match voice with face. Then the answer came, and Dougal shook his head. “But it belongs to a dead man.”
“My friends would argue that,” came the response. Dougal heard a distinct chuckle in the man’s thoughts and shook his head with disbelief. “For I eat more than most of them.”
There was a shuffling at the entrance to the cell and the two men slid back out into the hallway. A third man entered, and Dougal stared, waiting for the flames to bring him a face. It was the smile that lit first, and Dougal’s heart jumped.
“John? My God.” He stared, slack-jawed. “John Wallace? How in hell did ye—I never thought—”
His exclamations were lost in the wool-clad shoulder of the friend he thought he had lost so long before at Tilbury. The friend with the small black piece of paper. John had limped off with the soldiers the day before young Joseph was killed, the day before Dougal and Glenna had escaped. So much had happened since then. A lifetime of happenings. Ten years.
“I kent I’d see ye again someday, MacDonnell.”
“Ye kent more than I, then. I thought I’d no’ see ye on this earth again.” Dougal’s voice was cheery, but he was suddenly on guard, trying to read John’s thoughts. If John knew who he was, then wouldn’t these men take him back into custody? Not only for the murder of the footpad, but for escape from Tilbury as well. Perhaps there was a noose in his future.
John noticed him stiffen and gave him a reassuring smile. “Ye’re among friends, Dougal. While ye’ve been away, the world has changed yet again. Now the English want us for a different reason.”
Dougal made an enquiring noise.
“War is afoot in Europe and in the colonies.”
“Nothin’ new in that. Damn English tryin’ to rule the world as always.”
“Well, aye, an’ this time the English are fallin’ behind. Would it make ye laugh, my old friend, to know they are assembling a large regiment of Highlanders to fight for them?”
Something stirred in Dougal’s memory, thoughts of a dream he’d banished, sending a shudder down his spine. “Oh, aye?” he asked skeptically. “Highlanders to fight for the sassenachs? I’m no’ laughin’, John. Under whose command?”
John chewed on the inside of his cheek, savouring the moment. “Archibald Montgomerie. We’re takin’ ship to the colonies to fight the damn French.”
Dougal knew of Montgomerie, though he’d never met the man. Well respected was how he remembered him. But this made no sense. Montgomerie would never willingly work for the English. “No.”
“Aye. We’re to be”—John stuck out his chest proudly—“Montgomerie’s Highlanders.”
Dougal shook his head, trying to sort through all this. “So . . . Highland Scots will now fight for George? What sort of joke is that?”
“A brilliant one, my friend. The English ken they canna win wi’out us. It also gives ’em somethin’ to do wi’ all the wanderin’ Scots wi’out homes. An’ after all, it’s a joke that should bring ye relief, if no’ laughter, for it’ll save ye from the gallows.”
“So? What’s to do?” muttered one of the men in the dark hallway. “Is the beggar comin’ wi’ us or no’?”
John put a hand on Dougal’s shoulder and grinned. His teeth shone yellow in the lamplight. Dougal kept his own expression hidden. “If ever I kent a man bent on raisin’ a sword, it’d be this one,” John said, watching Dougal’s expression. “What of it? Would ye care to trade yer trousers for a plaid an’ join a fight, my friend?”
He supposed it should have been an easy decision. Dougal had been a warrior without a battle for too long, and the choice he was being offered was either to fight or to hang. Fight with his countrymen again? Aye, that he could do. Fight alongside the English army? Stand for the king whose long-ago cause had stolen everything from Dougal, as well as from the rest of Scotland? John was asking him to fight with the very men who had taken Glenna from him, when all he wanted was to slit each separate English throat. The thought came to him that he’d rather die than stand with them.
“I’ll hang, thanks. I’m no’ English dog.”
“Dougal, man. I ken what ye’re thinkin’, only it’s none so bad as ye’d think. We’re still Scots, no’ English. We’re only fightin’ the French this time.”
“I need time to think.”
“What’s there to think on? Fight for George or die.”
“John,” he said, lowering his voice. “How can ye do this? How can ye take up arms wi’ the English? Does it no’ bother ye?”
John’s hand dropped from Dougal’s shoulder. “Ye ken me better than that, ol’ friend. But there comes a time in a man’s life when he must face what has happened an’ see what will happen. They destroyed us, Dougal. There is no Scotland anymore. There is only England, an’ her army will as soon hang yer sorry arse. Will ye die wi’out need? Is there nothin’ in yer life ye still want to accomplish?”
Dougal swallowed. He wasn’t sure.
John tried a different direction, clearly exasperated. “Will ye allow them to kill another of us?”
Dougal felt ill. This was a gift, an opportunity. A chance not only to survive, but to fight again. But everything in him screamed defiance. Let them hang me. I’ll no’ bow down to the pigs. They killed my family. They stole my Glenna.
But . . . what if she still lived? What if Glenna existed somewhere, waiting for him to find her? He couldn’t abandon her, couldn’t throw his life away if she still needed it. He had promised to keep her safe. He couldn’t very well do that if he no longer breathed.
Pride was one thing, and he knew he had a lot of that. Probably too much. But common sense? That had never been his strength.
“I hate this,” Dougal muttered.
John closed his eyes and nodded, but said nothing. Something curled in Dougal’s stomach, shooting a flush through his cheeks, and he felt suddenly ashamed. Of course John hated it as well. Who was Dougal to imagine himself morally superior to his friend?
“Fight beside me, Dougal,” John said quietly, shuffling slightly forward so the light caught his eyes. “I’m in no hurry to lose a friend again so soon.”
Dougal felt deflated. “I need time, John.”
Dougal didn’t rise when John returned the next morning, but he watched him slide down the cool stone wall and settle beside him. Neither spoke for a bit. It was John who broke the silence, as it always had been in the past, so long before.
“They will hang ye,” he said. “They’d rather do that than send ye overseas. Ye’re too valuable as a soldier to waste ye as a slave.”
Dougal frowned. “Wh
at’s that mean?”
“Means they’re only shipping the weak an’ the women o’er. The men they’re either puttin’ in the army or in the noose.”
“What are ye talkin’ about, John? Shippin’ who where?”
John shrugged. “They’re still arrestin’ Scots whene’er they can, aye? Clearin’ out the Highlands, they call it. But they’ve no room for them all. So they’re sent to the colonies, mostly, an’ sold into service.”
Dougal sat up straighter. “Have they shipped out many women from here?”
“Oh aye. Half a dozen were sent last week, poor souls.” He shook his head. “Believe me, Dougal. You an’ I have the better choice.”
“Did you see these women?” Dougal demanded.
John frowned. “Aye,” he said slowly, puzzled. “Why do ye ask?”
“Was there one small? Golden haired? Fights like a wee wildcat?”
John tilted his head, looking thoughtfully toward the ceiling of the cell. He stroked his chin. “I only saw them the once. I—”
“Think,” Dougal growled.
John frowned at him, baffled. Then his expression softened as he figured out Dougal’s urgency. “She was yours?”
Dougal nodded once, but didn’t bother going into the fact that the feisty golden-haired lassie in question was also the boy, Aidan, from their prison. John returned to his thoughts, then sat abruptly taller and smiled. “Aye. I remember her now. Small as a boy, dressed like one as well.”
Dougal thought his heart might stop. He could picture her standing in the courtyard in her breeks, afraid, but revealing nothing. She had endured prison before. She knew what she would have to do to survive. But being bound and sent on one of those godforsaken ships like the one on which they’d first been imprisoned? And if she withstood that, how would she deal with being someone’s slave? Oh, Glenna.
“Ye said Montgomerie’s goin’ that way?”
John nodded and Dougal stood, mind made up. “I’ll go wi’ the damn English army.”
John’s shoulders relaxed and he got to his feet. He clapped Dougal on his shoulder again. “Come along. Ye’ll need a wash first off, for ye stink somethin’ awful. Then we’ll find ye somethin’ to eat, shall we?” He stared at Dougal a moment, then nodded again. “All will be fine, Dougal. Ye’ll see.”
“Stop wastin’ time, John. Get me out of this hole.”
In Dougal’s tortured mind he had thought there was nothing left for him to lose but his pride. He’d wavered, late in the pitch-black hours, not sure his pride was worth the cost of his life. Now everything had changed. Now he had hope. Glenna still lived. It was possible that he could someday find her again, and that, well, that made life worth living. Exhaling hard, blowing the last remnants of prison stink from his nose, he followed John out of the cell and into the gray light of day.
CHAPTER 24
Montgomerie’s Highlanders
Montgomerie’s Highlanders did more than rescue Dougal from prison and hanging. Ironically, being a part of the hated English army, though stationed among the Scots, restored what still remained of his dignity. Being needed reminded him of who he was, both mentally and physically.
The troop of Highlanders were the only ones permitted to wear tartan after an English law forbade it. After having been trapped in breeks for far too long, Dougal reveled in the opportunity to roll himself in the twelve yards of rough wool the army provided, dyed in the midnight navy and green of the Black Watch. And though the red, gold-buttoned jacket felt morally wrong for him to wear, every morning he shrugged into it and tugged on the long patterned hose. He grew accustomed to shoes again.
Dougal shared lodgings with John and ten other men, sleeping like rocks in their bunks at night. As an added boost to the Scots, they awoke every morning to the skirl of the pipes echoing off the fort’s stone walls. While the English had spent the last few years smothering any remaining Scottish pride, now they did what they could to encourage it. The ancient instrument, as well as the Scots’ traditional clothing and weapons, had been resurrected from banishment because of its ability to stir the Highlanders’ blood.
They sat around a long table in their room, having breakfast before beginning their daily grind of military exercises. John bent over his bowl, shoveling oatmeal into his mouth. He gave Dougal a sidelong glance. “Yer oatmeal’s better than this, my friend. Hamish canna cook to save his arse.”
Dougal tilted his head and nodded thanks. “Ye might be the first to ever say anythin’ nice about my cookin’.”
John looked surprised. “Oh no. I wasna sayin’ anythin’ nice. Yer oatmeal’s no’ good enough to feed to a pig. It’s only what Hamish makes is worse.”
“Ah,” Dougal said with a chuckle. “That sounds more like it.”
When they were finished, Dougal washed his hands, face, and knees, as was expected, then combed his long black hair and tied it into a club at the back of his neck. Then he and the others belted their plaids, holstered their weapons, filed outside, and lined up for exercises.
Once they were on the field, however, the Scots trained as the English wanted. Dougal defied the training at first, hating the disciplined English style of fighting. But he had no choice other than to fall in line. The men drilled twice a day, learning and practicing until the captain’s commands were second nature. Over time the lighter-weight carbine musket in Dougal’s hands came to feel as if it had always been there. The despised bayonet became an extension of his own arm. He felt as if he could march in his sleep.
In the beginning of his service with Montgomerie’s Highlanders, Dougal fought the urge to feel physically beaten, though he would never admit it. He wasn’t yet thirty, but his body ached with past injuries. More than that, his mind had been dulled by grief. He feared his heart, burdened by hopelessness, barely beat. But he wasn’t the sort to lie down and die. Instead, he steeled himself and pushed harder than ever, demanding excellence from his body.
When they weren’t polishing their soldiering skills, the men were usually busy with camp chores or sentry duty. Occasionally they were put to heavier labour, such as constructing roads and buildings. Dougal was happy to work every minute of the day. Happy to keep so busy he had no time to think of Glenna and what could possibly be happening with her.
But when the exhausted men took off their jackets, unraveled their plaids, and peeled off sweat-soaked stockings before falling into their bunks at the end of the day, she was in his head, waiting. His fingertips tingled with the need to trace the lines of her face. Her laughter trilled like a bird’s song, her singing filled his head, though sometimes he had to listen hard so he could hear her over the snoring, farting group of men. Thinking of Glenna was an agonising memory he craved, a sweet torture he hated. Even her scent still dwelled in Dougal’s mind.
Other men here had lost their families as well. Occasionally one of them would wax romantic about something his wife had once said, another might sit a little prouder when he discussed the height of his eldest boy the last time he’d seen him. When Dougal concentrated on a man’s face, if the timing was right and he cared to listen, he could hear echoes of memories in the man’s mind, half-remembered emotions that tethered him to the past.
Dougal didn’t carry simple memories that would fade over time. For better or worse, he heard the voices, the words, the laughter as if they all still occurred. Though it was painful to hear, Andrew’s voice was sometimes so clear it was as if he stood at his shoulder. At other times it seemed so far away it almost wasn’t there. He dreamed of the voices of the rest of his family, remembered happier times. Glenna’s voice was as clear to him as it had been in their little croft at Aberfeldy, asking if he would like some stew, would he like a swim, would he like to come to bed soon? He held on to the sound, needing to keep it safe, though he hadn’t been able to do the same for her. But while this odd trick of his mind gave him strength, it also haunted him. She was gone, but his strange ability kept the pain as sharp as it had ever been.
Th
e voices surrounding him now were commonplace, and soothing for that reason. The men’s thoughts, on the whole, were regular, uninteresting, which made everything easier. He had spent years without the simple company of men after his escape from Tilbury, living in blissful peace with Glenna. But Dougal was comfortable among men, and he was a sociable sort. The brogues around him varied, but for the most part they were thick and broad, voices from the North, from parts of the Highlands Dougal had never travelled. There were some from his area as well, but the only man he knew well was John.
Dougal’s mind had tuned to John’s since they’d rekindled their friendship. He tried to block his friend’s thoughts so he didn’t feel as if he intruded, but sometimes it was unavoidable. When John exercised, his mind was blank, honed on targets. But when he set aside his weapons and took quiet time for himself at the end of the day, Dougal saw the pain John hid behind humour.
John’s natural cheerfulness masked the scars he bore from grieving for his brothers and father. But nothing could hide the open wound that still seeped memories of his Mairi. She had been a camp follower, slain at the battlefield years before. John had seen the soldier slit her throat and drop her seizing body to the ground. He had run to her and dropped to his knees, rocking her in his arms in that brief moment between this world and the next, wishing it were his blood instead of hers that rivered down his arm.
Then he had plunged back into battle, slaughtering Englishmen in the hopes that he might diminish his own pain. But it had done no good.
“How is it ye come to be here, John? On this earth, I mean,” Dougal asked one night as they sat outside their barracks.
“Oh, t’would take more than a mere hangin’ to rid the world of me,” his friend replied, nodding sagely. “But in truth, ’tis a good story, that. I stood in front of the judge, bonnet in hand, and told him I was guilty of everythin’ they said. What choice did I have? They asked did I have anythin’ more to tell them, did I ken any other Jacobites I should tell them about, that sort of rubbish, but I played dumb. Anyhow, I was ill, aye? From my foot, ye recall?”
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