Pursuit of Princes (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 5)

by Julia Brannan

  “What’s right, sir?” he asked.

  “That we’re almost out of MacDonald country.”

  “Damned if I know, sir. All looks the bloody same to me.”

  “Well, in any case,” continued the sergeant, dismissing this unhelpful comment, “you need fear nothing from the MacDonalds.”

  “Even so,” replied Mr Grundy, “I will be most relieved when we are away from their land.”

  In fact they were already away from Glencoe’s land, and had been for about five minutes, as the plain-speaking Yorkshireman and the deaf idiot well knew.

  They rode for a couple of minutes in silence, to the captain’s relief. Bees buzzed in the wildflowers and occasionally a butterfly flitted past their faces. A large horsefly landed on the sergeant’s cheek and he raised his hand to squash it before it could bite. High up on the hill to the right a figure dressed in dark purple and green appeared and started to run down towards the redcoats, before suddenly halting and then dropping like a stone to the ground and disappearing in the heather.

  Mr Grundy let out a screech and reined his horse in so suddenly that George, riding directly behind him, cannoned into him. The captain’s horse reared up at the sudden noise right next to his ear and Sewell swore fluently as he brought it under control. The Yorkshireman barely noticed. He was pointing up the mountain on the left, a look of abject terror on his face, his eyes enormous behind his brass-rimmed spectacles.

  “Look!” he cried. “It moved!”

  Everyone stared up at the spot on the hillside at which Mr Grundy was pointing. Except John, who was, as was his way, staring vacantly all around him.

  “What is it? What can you see?” asked the captain. All he could see was grass and heather.

  “There!” Grundy persisted. Protruding from the heather some three-quarters of the way up the mountain was a large black rock. “Is it a bear?” he asked fearfully.

  Everyone within earshot started laughing, except Captain Sewell, who was thoroughly sick of this man who had grown increasingly fearful as the trip had progressed and would soon no doubt be terrified of his own shadow.

  “There are no bears in Scotland, sir,” he said, holding on to his temper with some difficulty.

  “Except the ones that go down to Loch Ness to dance with the sea monster at the full moon,” a wit cried out from further back. More laughter.

  “Are you sure?” asked Mr Grundy, unconvinced. “It looks like a bear to me.”

  “It’s a rock, Toby,” Mr Armstrong said reassuringly, aware that the captain was close to saying something unforgivably rude.

  Mr Grundy took his glasses off, cleaned them on his coat sleeve, put them on again and peered up the mountain once more.

  “Oh,” he said, a little shamefacedly. “So it is.”

  The cavalcade started moving again. John seemed to be having some trouble getting his horse to move, with the result that he dropped back a little and ended up riding almost level with the soldier who had shot the squirrel earlier.

  They rode for maybe five more minutes. The mist had cleared completely now and it was becoming very warm. Mr Grundy twisted a little in the saddle, reaching his left hand up his back in an attempt to scratch between his shoulder blades. Mr Armstrong moved up level with him, so they were riding three abreast; Armstrong to the left, Grundy in the middle and Captain Sewell on the right. Directly in front of Armstrong rode Sergeant Applewhite.

  Mr Grundy gave up trying to reach the itchy spot and instead took his hat off with a great flourish, mopping his brow and dislodging his wig in the process, which fell to the ground. His natural hair, which had been tied at the nape of his neck and then pushed up under the wig, was revealed in all its chestnut glory.

  Captain Sewell just had time to register that Mr Grundy’s hair was a completely different shade to his eyebrows before the man drew his sword with lightning speed, raising it high in the air.

  “Ard choille!” he yelled, and then turning, drove his blade deep into the captain’s chest. The man slid sideways off his horse and was dead before he hit the ground, a look of puzzlement still on his face.

  Graeme meanwhile had buried his dirk between the sergeant’s shoulder blades, pulling it out again, and the man backwards with it.

  Before the other redcoats could register what was happening at the front of the line, the mountains on both sides erupted into life as a horde of kilted Highlanders materialised out of the heather and began to charge downhill at terrifying speed, straight towards the soldiers.

  Some of the soldiers panicked and attempted to run on, or back; but more Highlanders were running up the track towards them in both directions. There seemed to be hundreds of them, and as they charged they drew their swords and roared their fury, made all the more terrifying because the language they spoke was incomprehensible to the redcoats.

  The soldier who had shot the squirrel was already dead, stabbed through the throat by Iain as he tried to unsling his musket from his shoulder. Ahead Alex was laying waste to everything around him, slashing and hacking in all directions. Graeme spurred his horse ahead in an attempt to catch up with a couple of officers who were riding on at a dead run hoping to ride straight over the oncoming Highlanders and on to freedom.

  No one could live to tell the tale; that was the most important thing. He kicked at his horse, forcing it to even greater effort, and then there was a series of loud cracks from partway up the hill and the soldiers jerked and fell from their horses, which carried on riderless at a dead run. One of the men’s feet had caught in the stirrup as he fell, and he was dragged along beside the horse like a rag doll. Graeme reined in hard, and his horse reared, almost throwing him from the saddle. He fought to control it as the running Highlanders parted like the Red Sea to let the horses and Graeme through, one of them slashing at the stirrup to release the tethered man, then neatly cutting his throat, before joining his comrades in what became within seconds a bloodbath.

  By the time Graeme had brought his horse to a standstill, then turned and ridden her back, it was all over. Scarlet-coated bodies lay everywhere, and the stream, still bubbling merrily along, ran red with blood. The Highlanders, dressed in muted shades of purple, brown and green, which blended perfectly with the terrain through which they had, mere minutes ago, charged with such devastating effect, were now examining the redcoats, ensuring that none of them lived.

  Graeme rode up to where the MacGregor chieftain and his brother stood deep in conversation. All around them men were laughing and congratulating each other on what had been, without doubt, an unqualified success. Forty redcoats dead, and not one Highlander lost. A couple of minor wounds, but that was nothing.

  In a few minutes the hard work would begin. The cattle, which had run off all over the valley, had to be rounded up again; and all the redcoats had to disappear. But for now there was general celebration. MacGregors and MacDonalds sat themselves down and rested while they waited for further instructions. Someone produced a leather skin full of whisky which was passed from hand to hand.

  “Looks like I missed most of the party,” Graeme commented wryly, swinging himself down from the saddle and massaging his knee, which was giving him problems at the moment.

  Angus, uncharacteristically grim-faced, looked across at the older man, and then over his right shoulder. Graeme glanced back and saw Allan MacDonald approaching them. His silver-blond hair had come free from its leather thong during the skirmish, and blew around his face. He pushed it back impatiently and then spoke.

  “Where is he?” he said.

  Alex made to move forward between the two men, but Angus stopped him.

  “Up there, near the rowan,” he said, pointing to a spot at the top of the hill some way in the distance.

  “Aye, well, let’s go and get the wee gomerel, then,” Allan said. “Aunt Ealasaid’ll break his neck when she finds out what he did.”

  Alex called to Iain, who was heading their way.

  “Let the men have a couple of minutes, a
nd then we need to start cleaning up, fast. We have to do it all and be gone before sunset. Did ye bring the tools?” he asked Angus.

  “Aye, we left them at the top when we charged.”

  “Good. Iain, leave the cattle for now, they’ll no’ go far. Get all the bodies together, and then I want everyone to start digging up there.” He pointed to a heather-clad part of the mountain. “Dig up the heather first, and put it to one side, then we need a hole, big enough to bury everyone. Afterwards we can put the heather back, so it’ll no’ be seen from a distance.”

  Iain nodded.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  Alex pointed to the rowan.

  “I’ll no’ be long,” he said in a low voice. “You did well today,” he shouted across to the men of both clans seated on the grass all around him. “It does my heart good to see us fighting together again!”

  Judging by the resounding cheers that followed the three men as they started to climb up to the rowan tree, they agreed with him.

  * * *

  “Oh, shit,” Angus said, softly but with great feeling a few minutes later. He had run on ahead of the other two men, anxious to see the results of his earlier action.

  Robert MacDonald lay in the heather where he had fallen, felled by the rock thrown at his head by Angus some twenty minutes before. The beautiful flaxen hair that he shared with several members of his family, including the brother now toiling up the hill behind him, moved gently in the soft summer breeze. His equally beautiful cornflower-blue eyes were open, gazing sightlessly at the sky. One arm was outstretched, the fingers still curled around the hilt of his sword, which he had drawn as he had charged prematurely over the brow of the hill, in flagrant disobedience of Angus’s orders.

  Angus knelt down by the side of the boy, and gently stroked the hair back from his face.

  “Christ, laddie,” he said softly. “Why could ye no’ listen, and do as ye were tellt?”

  Alex trotted up to join him and stopped.

  “Shit,” he said, echoing his brother, and turned, seconds too late to shield Allan from seeing his brother’s lifeless body splayed across the heather.

  Allan stopped dead and stared for a moment, as though unable to believe what his eyes were telling him. Angus started to rise, holding up a placatory hand.

  “Allan, I didna mean to…” he began, but the young man pushed past him, intent only on reaching his brother, and dropping to the ground, he wrapped his arms around Robert, lifting his upper body across his lap and cradling him as though he were a small child.

  “No,” he said breathlessly. “No, oh God, no, no, no.” He crushed his brother’s face against his chest, rocking back and forth, tears streaming down his face.

  Tears sprang to Angus’s eyes as he watched the young man mourn the death of his brother, remembering how he had felt when his own brother had died on the battlefield of Culloden. His heart clenched in his chest and he felt the grief well up in him, grief for Duncan, who was lost to him forever, and grief for this reckless youth whose life he had taken away almost before it had begun.

  He turned, unconsciously seeking comfort from his remaining brother, but Alex had moved away and was leaning against the tree, his face in shadow, whether to give Allan space to grieve or because he couldn’t bear the visual reminder of his dead wife in the features of her cousins, Angus couldn’t tell.

  He stood frozen, utterly at a loss for what to say or do to make this right. He could not make this right. The MacDonalds would never forgive him. The cheerful laughter and banter of the mingled clansmen drifting up the hill would, once they found out what he’d done, turn to hatred and bloodshed. More bloodshed.

  It seemed that he stood there for hours, but when Allan finally stopped keening and rocking and gently closed his brother’s eyes before laying him back down in the heather, the sun had barely moved in the sky.

  Allan stood up and looked across at Angus, his eyes red-rimmed, the tears still pouring unheeded down his cheeks.

  “It wasna your fault,” he said in a choked voice. “He never did listen when his blood was up, no’ even tae MacIain. It wasna your fault. I saw him run. Ye had to stop him or he’d have killed us all.”

  “I didna mean to kill him, man. I swear to God,” Angus said earnestly.

  Allan walked over to Angus on shaky legs and gripped him by the shoulder.

  “Dinna fash yerself. I’ll tell them.” He nodded down towards the men below them, who were now moving to drag the redcoat corpses to the burying spot Alex had pointed out. “I loved him,” he added softly. “MacIain was right no’ to let him fight for Charlie. But he couldna protect him forever, and he’d have died anyway, the first time he fought. At least it was quick, and clean.” His voice broke then and he closed his eyes for a moment, breathing hard through his mouth to force back the emotion. “I’ll tell them it wasna your fault,” he repeated. “I just need a minute, alone.”

  Alex moved forward now, out of the shade of the tree.

  “Take all the time ye need, laddie. We’ll bury the redcoats and gather the cattle together. And then we’ll take Robert home, the three of us.”

  Allan nodded, then walked back to his brother and knelt down beside him.

  Alex jerked his head at Angus, and the two MacGregors started to make their way back down the hill, leaving Allan alone to say goodbye to his brother. Both of them felt drained and utterly weary, as men do when grief has swept unexpectedly over them, a grief rendered all the more potent by contrast with the euphoria of a few moments before.

  And both of them were remembering the brother who had united them, the gentle soft-spoken peacemaker who had stepped fearlessly between his hot-headed siblings from the moment they’d been old enough to fight each other. They had not had time to say goodbye to Duncan, had no idea where his body was, whether buried or left for the crows to pick clean, and both of them felt that keenly. The least they could do was give Allan what they had not had.

  “If Duncan’s killer had come to apologise to me,” Angus said as they approached the valley, “I couldna…” His voice trailed off. He was stunned by the generosity of spirit of the young MacDonald.

  “Aye. It takes a brave man to say what he said there to ye, to be so fair, wi’ his brother lying dead next to him. He’s a fine man, worthy of his kin. Ealasaid must be very proud of him. And he was right. It wasna your fault. I saw him come charging over the hill. I managed to distract the redcoats by pretending I’d seen a bear over on the opposite side of the glen, but if he’d made it another few feet the redcoats would have seen him. They’d probably have killed at least a few of us, and I doubt we’d have been able to stop some of them making it back to Fort William. I ken we promised MacIain that we’d get onto Campbell land before we ambushed them, but the British are no’ stupid. They’d have wiped out Glencoe anyway, just to be sure. I feel sorry for the laddie, but he was a fool, and if you hadna killed him someone else would have, soon enough.”

  “D’ye think Ealasaid will believe that I didna kill him because I still bear a grudge over Morag?” Angus asked.

  “Aye. She likes you. And she kens that ye were angry that night, but that ye didna see him as a real threat. Is that what’s worrying ye?”

  “A lot of things are worrying me. Whether MacIain’ll accept it was an accident or declare a blood feud. Whether the other MacDonalds’ll accept it was an accident, regardless of what Allan says. And whether I can forgive myself for killing an innocent wee laddie, just because he was a loon.”

  Alex stopped, forcing Angus to stop with him.

  “Whatever MacIain and the MacDonalds think, we’ll find a way to make them see the truth of it. I think they’ll accept Allan’s word and yours, to be honest. MacIain’s no’ in the mood for a blood feud anyway, I’m thinking, and neither am I. But there’s nothing for you to forgive yourself for. He was seventeen, Angus, no’ a wee laddie. When ye were seventeen ye were reckless and ye grieved me at times, but ye never defied a direct order
from me, even when ye believed I was in the wrong. He wasna innocent, he was defiant and heedless of the consequences. Far better ye killed him than let him be the cause of his whole clan dying. MacIain will see the sense of that, as will Ealasaid. I warned her that I’d kill him if he defied me, and she accepted that. You were acting as chief for me. Dinna waste a second on remorse for what ye did. Ye were right, and I’ll stand by ye.”

  Angus took his brother in a sudden bear hug, and they clung to each other for a moment.

  “I’m sorry I grieved ye,” he said.

  “Aye, well, ye’re grown now, and no mistake. If anything were to happen to me, I’d leave the clan in good hands. But I’ll only say that the once, mind.” Alex clapped his brother on the back, then released him. “Now,” he said, “there’s a burying to be done, cattle to be taken to Coire Gabhail, and then we can make things right wi’ Glencoe. And after that I’ve a mind to head north and find out if Lochiel really is dead, as the redcoats seem to think. I’ll no’ believe it till I hear it from someone I can trust.”

  He carried on, down to the valley. He would wait until Allan came down before he told the MacDonalds what had happened. They could not afford to stop for an argument now; burying the redcoats and rounding up the cattle was paramount, and they needed to work together to do that, and quickly.

  In spite of the emotional scene of a few moments ago, as he joined the others he felt a weight lift from his heart. It was good to have a sense of purpose again, to be fighting. It stopped him sinking too deeply into memory and regret. He would have to keep active and focussed on revenge, put everything into that. He knew it was highly likely that at some point he would be taken or killed, but at least he would die doing something Beth would have approved of. And that was worth something.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  London, July 25th, 1746

  Beth sat in her customary place by the window, her mouth drawn tight in a grimace of pain. Her right arm was held out sideways at shoulder height, in her hand the book Pamela. She had not changed position for eight minutes, hence the facial expression. One more minute and she would have beaten yesterday’s time. She watched as the clock on the wall ticked away, the large hand taking forever to move one click round the face. Then she dropped the book in her lap and rotated her shoulder, massaging it with the fingers of her left hand.