Ghosts of Culloden Moor 24 - The Bugler

by L. L. Muir

  “Sergeant, come!” He waved enthusiastically while he eyed Morey. His brows rose when he noticed the bugle tucked beneath his arm. “What have we here?”

  “Master General,” Gregory Campbell bowed. “Laird Lovat regrets that he is unable to send men at this time. He claims his troops are fighting amongst themselves and he dared not send ye any man for fear of planting a Jacobite sympathizer among yer ranks.”

  Campbell snorted as if he wasn’t surprised in the least. “I wondered how he might weasel out of his promise.” He smiled at Morey. “And what about ye, my young friend? Can I trust that ye have no Jacobite sympathies, then?”

  “Lovat sends you this fine bugler,” the sergeant said with a wink. “Morey Fraser is his name, and Lovat insists he is worth a hundred farmers.”

  Campbell lifted a brow and squinted, obviously waiting for Morey to answer his question. But there was nothing threatening in his demeanor. In fact, Morey had the impression he could speak plainly and not be clouted upside the head for it.

  “Master General, sir, I can only say that I have no ken where my sympathies lie. With Scotland, I suppose. For who am I to say who should be king of it? I play my horn and kiss…” he swallowed, “and kiss a lass now and again. But politics have naught to do with me.”

  Campbell chuckled. “Naught to do with ye?” He wagged his head from side to side, unbelieving. “It is politics that has taken ye from the Highlands, young fellow. And as a bugler, it shall be politics that rule the remainder of yer life. Let us hope it is a long one.”

  It was no secret that musicians in the military—be they drummers, pipers, or buglers—were an easy target for the enemy. They brought attention to themselves with each and every note they played, besides the bright colors they were expected to wear. If it weren’t for the relative peace of the times, Morey doubted his grandsire and sire would have lived as long as they had. So the hint of regret he read in Campbell’s eyes was not missed.

  The master general turned to Morey’s escort. “Sergeant, see him settled in. If he’s not over-weary, bring him to my table this evening.” To Morey, he said, “Welcome, Morey Fraser. And rest quickly, for we’ve just had word that the Jacobites have taken Edinburgh.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Morey soon learned why the Jacobite overthrow of Edinburgh meant little rest for himself. When he left the hall, he found that all those Campbells who had ambled around town less than an hour before were now running flat out from place to place. No pleasantries exchanged. No smiles. Just an eerie quiet amid the pandemonium.

  The army, it seemed, was preparing to leave. And they’d be taking their musicians along with them.

  Rest quickly indeed.

  A private showed Alex to bathing house. After a quick wash, he was then shown to the cottage he would be sharing with the drummers, at least for that night. They were expected to muster early the following morning and head north around the end of Loch Fyne, then south and east toward Edinburgh. He was relieved. At least he wouldn’t be retracing the same route he’d travelled to Inveraray.

  Resting had to wait until after supper. Gregory Campbell turned out to be a nephew of the duke’s and was comfortable joining his uncle and his generals at a round table at the far end of the Viking hall. Morey was naturally nervous when he was introduced to the duke, but the way he’d been treated thus far kept him optimistic.

  Small fires burning along one wall lit the faces of dozens of people who might have been hidden earlier by shadows. All ears seemed to strain in Argyll’s direction, but he seemed content to let the younger men blether. John Campbell and his generals spoke amiably of innocuous things. Either their plans had already been settled, or they didn’t trust all those ears with their upcoming plans.

  By the end of the meal, Morey had to acknowledge four things.

  First, the Campbell lasses were every bit as pretty as those of Clan Fraser. Second, they had a sobriety about them he imagined he could rectify.

  Third, and having naught to do with lasses at all, Morey liked the major general, and the duke for that matter. Forth, and most unsettling, was the fact that he didn’t want to like them.

  The massacre at Glen Coe had occurred twelve years before Morey was born. Though it was a direct result of the first Jacobite Rising, when James Stuart made his final attempt to regain his own throne, the incident itself was sometimes consigned to a feud between the Campbell and MacDonald clans. It was a history that had nothing to do with Morey Fraser’s life—at least until that night. And strictly speaking, the current Duke of Argyll had not been head of Clan Campbell when the massacre was ordered.

  But still, sitting at their table, he imagined that the ghosts of many a MacDonald were pounding on the outside of the new pine walls, warning him to flee.

  ~

  After the generals had retired, Morey wandered along the other tables where the younger officers had finished their meals. Among them, he found the drummers, Mars and Dallas, and another Campbell bugler named Couper. They were welcoming enough, but there was something about Couper that seemed familiar. He just couldn’t imagine what it might be.

  He watched the bugler for a long while, then gave up altogether.

  “I’ll give ye fair warnin,” Mars said. “Dinna get in between Couper and the lasses, and ye’ll get on well enough, aye?” He and Dallas had a good chuckle. Couper gave Morey a pointed look that said the drummers’ advice should be heeded. Then he went back to doing what he’d been doing—carrying on a silent conversation with one of the lasses burdened with refilling their cups.

  Dallas elbowed Morey and gestured to Couper. “Believes his lips are made of gold, he does.” He laughed, then sobered, looking closely at Morey’s mouth. “Mars? Ye think all buglers believe the same?”

  Morey rolled his eyes and laughed. But when the conversation moved on to what the next battle might hold in store, he couldn’t help watching Couper observe the lasses.

  Understanding dawned like the realization one’s stomach contents are about to reappear. In fact, he worried his own stomach was about to turn, and hard, when he understood why Couper seemed familiar. There was nothing about the man’s face that Morey recognized. Nothing about his expression, either, even as he waited for the lass to meet his gaze. Rather, what was familiar to Morey was the knowledge of what that expression felt like from the inside.

  How many times had he looked out of those eyes, waited in anticipation for a lass’s gaze to meet his—so he could begin coaxing her toward his spider’s web? For that was what Couper resembled. A spider lying in wait. Spinning in anticipation of the catch.

  A tickle of a shiver ran up his spine and into his left ear, not unlike a speedy insect and he swatted at the sensation.

  Lord help him. Was he and Couper so similar? Back home with the Frasers, had he been so obvious?

  Of course he had!

  Had he given a fig? Nae a one.

  But seeing it now, from the other side of that mask, made him ill.

  Ye think all buglers believe their lips are golden?

  Morey stood and obeyed an uncontrollable urge to put distance between himself and…himself. A captain appeared and shooed the lasses away, told them to take their pitchers with them. Then he gave the soldiers a meaningful look and nodded to the door. As one, the lot of them jumped to their feet and shuffled toward the opening. While Morey waited for his chance to exit the hall, he noticed Couper staring at him, grinning.

  Morey frowned at the fellow, but the bugler only grinned wider.

  “Ye can have their hearts, Fraser. But only after I’ve done with the rest of them.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Reluctant to find himself locked in with Couper for the night, Morey set out for a large cairn he remembered passing before he and the sergeant had entered town. Cutting back to the north and east, he found the mound much sooner than expected. But just as he remembered, folks moved their carts and horses around it with few of them bothering to glance up. And short of striking o
ut into an unknown countryside, the knoll was the closest thing to privacy he was likely to find.

  It was passing strange how different was the view from twenty some-odd feet above the toiling masses. With hands on hips, he turned in a circle, feeling quite the king of the hill until he realized he was not alone.

  Sitting with her back to him was the lass whom Couper had been eyeing in the large hall. She was just settling her skirts around her when she glanced over her shoulder. She jumped to her feet like a frightened-but-defiant rabbit and looked down her nose at him. “How dare ye—”

  “I didnae follow ye, lass. Upon my honor.” How many times had he said something similar with no honor in mind at all? “Easy, now.” He held out his hands to stay her. “Dinna fash. I’ll just go along my way and leave ye in peace.”

  She nodded, then eyed him up and down. “Ye’ll tell Couper where to find me.”

  “He’s the last man I’d say aught to this night. And on the morrow, he’ll be gone.”

  She nodded again, less stiff this time. “If I wouldn’t be skelped for it, I’d wait right here until the last red tail of ye is gone.”

  He grimaced and nodded, finally understanding just a little of the distrust he’d sown back home. And that row of lasses he’d imagined mourning his loss, casting wistful glances out the castle gate? He now grasped the probability that some were spitting on his footsteps and dancing in his wake.

  “The safest place for ye now, with the gloamin’ a comin’, is behind a locked door. Go on with ye!” He stepped aside and gestured back toward the town. Surely, there was somewhere for the lass to hide from any man, not just Couper, who might be inclined to kiss the lassies farewell before morning.

  The young woman gave him a strange look and a wide berth as she flew past him on bare feet. No doubt his own expression showed similar surprise. Imagine. Morey Fraser letting a pretty lass slip away from him unkissed. And what was more, he’d told her to go!

  When he’d left Beaufort two days before, he’d been prepared for a drastic change in his life. But he’d been thinking of his new station as bugler for a general who didn’t rely on Highland pipers to communicate orders. He hadn’t considered that his deportment and sensibilities toward women might be changed, and all since supper.

  He’d been looking forward to new adventures that wouldn’t include the counting of sheep, doing what God had put him on earth to do. There was a destiny awaiting him as he’d scurried down the hillside toward his meeting with Laird Lovat. He’d tasted it on his tongue with every gasp of breath on that cool summer’s night, anticipating a grand assignment that only he could do.

  But he hadn’t imagined that in leaving Millie MacGilles behind he would also be leaving his old self—that lad who used to resemble Couper in more ways than he would like to think on.

  Sitting there on the knoll that might well be the cairn of some long-ago king, with no other company than the stars spread out above him, he felt new. He felt…like a man newly repented. He could almost imagine returning to his home in the north, once the stramash was over, and stumbling upon a dried husk of his old self. Like a skin shed from the snake he used to be.

  The question was this: would he feel the same come morning? Would he wake without a memory of the fullness now pressing from inside his chest? While he slept, would he fail to recall what a new beginning felt like? And at the first sight of a pretty lass, would he see only her lips and wonder how he might maneuver them until they were pressed against his own?

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. And after repeating the action a handful of times, he finally whispered to himself.

  “I’ll not forget. I’ll not forget. I’ll not forget.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Half an hour later, Morey tried to retrace his steps to the cottage he’d been assigned but failed. With no one about, and no other alternative, he returned to the bath house and started from there. The route remembered, he struck out for his temporary home, but when he’d not gone a dozen paces, he heard a splash and a muffled scream.

  His stomach plummeted, and he hurried back to the bath house. The door was locked. And though he heard nothing from inside, he took no chances. He lowered his shoulder and barreled through the slat door. He was able to stop his momentum just as his toes tilted over an unseen edge. The large room was dark as pitch, the air heavy with a day’s worth of steam. He held perfectly still and listened.

  Water sloshed and slapped at its confines, then settled again. If someone were being held beneath the surface, there was no time for games.

  He spoke forcefully. “Who goes there?”

  Laughter answered him. “Fraser?”

  “Aye. And I need light!”

  There was a swoosh of water and a woman’s panicked gasp. After a few breaths, she screamed, but the sound was muffled. She still breathed, though she struggled to do so.

  “Couper!”

  The man laughed again. “Aye. Wheesht now. Come and join us.”

  “Oh, I will. I will.” Morey stepped back to the doorway that was only a square of blue amid so much black. “Cruachan!” He yelled with all his might. “Cruachan!” It was the war cry of the Campbells.

  Couper cursed. The lass screamed again, though the blackguard still had to be covering her mouth with his hand. If she didn’t cease, he’d be putting her back under the water to silence her!

  Morey retrieved a door plank from the floor and beat on the wall until he heard voices raised in alarm. He tossed the board out the door and moved deeper into the room, feeling with his feet before placing each hurried step, his ears straining for a direction to follow.

  Couper cursed again and moved to the left. The lass’s gasps moved to the right. Morey followed her, bending and groping, determined to pull her from the water if he could only find her. The slosh of Couper’s wet steps circled along the walls, but he had to know the lass was safe before he worried about defending himself or punishing the offender.

  He found her hand. She pulled away.

  “To me, lass,” he urged.

  An approaching torch lent the room an orange glow. The lass clutched at him, and he looked down into her terror-filled eyes. Without warning, he was viciously shoved to the left and could do nothing to prevent falling across the rims of four massive barrels that filled a large hole in the floor. His ribs fairly cracked against their rigid edges. His legs slammed into the water. Gravity pulled his boots to the bottom of the barrel in which the lass flailed. He maneuvered himself around, prepared to face the mob he’d roused, and tried to shield the lass from their view.

  Couper, too, faced the door where a number of men jostled each other for position. A major pushed through them all and took control.

  “I thank God ye heard me,” Couper said dramatically. “I found our new trumpeter trying to drown the lass—”

  “Nay!” The girl pushed around Morey. “Nay, it was Couper who tried to drown me when I refused his attentions. It was Couper! This one saved me. Couper pushed him in.”

  Though the villain attempted to speak over her denials, the lass had voice enough to be heard. The major sent for his commander. Morey and Couper were ordered to stay put along with the woman. Two guards were posted at the door along with the light. The interior of the bathing house was left in shadow once more.

  “Remember, lass,” Couper purred. “Ye came inside of yer own free will.”

  “I didnae,” she said quietly, at Morey’s back. He found her hand on the rim and gave it a squeeze.

  It might have been ten minutes later when the yard lit up like midday. The warm light of innumerable torches was accompanied by the slap of many a leather boot and a gasp or two from the guards. One of them stepped inside smartly, carrying a torch and holding it out to light the bath house. The Master General himself followed. Not a whisker could be found on his jaw. Not a button was missing from his uniform. The red cloth fairly glowed beside the orange flame.

  It took a moment for him to take in the scene. M
orey stood at attention but lifted one arm to shield the wet lass from all eyes. Thankfully, she didn’t fight him.

  “Explain to me why the entire camp has lost their last good sleep, Couper. Or did ye think it amusing to practice the battle cry at this hour?”

  Couper lifted his chin. “Nay, sir. I heard the lass scream—”

  “Ballocks.” Morey’s matter-of-fact denial filled the room, carrying clearly across the full barrels of water.

  Couper’s lies were ignored as John Campbell turned his full attention to his new bugler. “Ye will have yer turn, Mr. Fraser. As will the lass.” He faced Couper again. “So I suggest ye choose yer words carefully.”

  “It was all my fault,” Couper began, surprising everyone present. Even the guard’s brows lifted. “I caught them in a tryst, ye see. And believing the lass was being drowned, I called for help. Now, in their embarrassment, they mean to make a villain of me.”

  “All ballocks,” Morey elaborated, not waiting for permission. He might have gone right on elaborating had the Master General not leveled a scowl at him. The man sighed and clicked his fingers. When an ensign appeared, he sent the soldier to fetch a cloak for the lass.

  After another warning glare, Campbell tilted his head. “Lass? Are ye harmed?”

  “Nay, yer lairdship.” Her shivering was evident in her words and the ripples in the water at Morey’s back.

  “I’ve sent for a cloak. We’ll have ye warmed up in no time. But give me the truth. Did one of these men try to drown ye in earnest?”

  She nodded soberly. “Couper, sir.”

  “And if I warn ye that the man’s life is at stake, would ye change yer answer?”

  “She has spoken the truth,” Morey said. “I beg ye not to burden her with the man’s fate.”

  Campbell nodded, then gestured toward the doorway. Two soldiers stepped inside and took hold of Couper’s arms. “We are at war, soldier.” The master general stepped close to the villain and narrowed his eyes. “Do ye ken what that means?”