Midnight Honor

by Marsha Canham

  The “urgent message” had in fact come from the pen of a gray-haired old fox who had drifted off to sleep twice while composing it, and the only French ship that landed did so well north of where Cumberland anxiously watched the coastline. While the battered old frigate did carry troops, they amounted to fewer than three hundred who served in the personal guard of Lord John Drummond. Of more pressing value to the Jacobites gathering at Aberdeen were the guns and ammunition in her holds, along with the four chests of gold Drummond had managed, at long last, to prise from the French king's coffers.

  Jamie Farquharson arrived in Aberdeen while the ship was still offloading its cargo. Upon reading the documents he carried and realizing the significance of the Dutch treaty, Lord Drummond immediately removed his blockade runner's garb and declared himself the official representative of King Louis in Scotland. As such, he sent formal notice to the commander of the six thousand Dutch veterans serving under the Duke of Cumberland, advising him to return home at once lest he violate the terms of the new treaty.

  Cumberland was understandably furious as he watched nearly three quarters of his veteran troops march out of camp. Moreover, at the end of a futile three-week vigil, with nary a French sail in sight, he was forced to acknowledge that he had been duped. This time, when the enraged duke turned his eyes and army north to Scotland, he did so with a vow to carry his royal cousin's head to London and leave it spiked on the gates of his father's palace until the flesh rotted and fell off the bone.

  Colin Mor heard sounds in the glen long before he ventured out of doors to identify them. Hearing what started as a low, distant rumble, he had initially closed the shutters against an approaching storm. But when the disturbance grew louder and closer, it started breaking into patterns that were distinctly man-made; the rolling of wheels on the rutted earth, the shuffle of many footsteps, the creak of saddle leather and the muted jingle of harness traces.

  Colin stood outside his clachan, the door open and tilted on its rope hinges. Dusk had come early on this January evening, and there was just enough ambient light to turn the heavy mist into a gray, soupy miasma. Cold and wet, the fog had settled into the bowl of the glen earlier and rendered anything beyond the reach of a child's throw opaque. It was certainly not the kind of night that would inspire travel, nor was Colin's tiny glen anywhere near a main thoroughfare. His small sheep farm was, as his wife often lamented, in the middle of nowhere, with high craggy peaks to the north, dense tracts of fir trees to the east and west, and a swampy elbow of the River Dee at their backs. The closest kirk was Kildrummy, with the city of Aberdeen another thirty miles down the river.

  His wife, Rose, was standing behind him now, a bairn on her hip, two more clinging to her skirts.

  “What is it, Colla?” she asked in a terrified whisper.

  He shook his head, tilting it to one side as if that would help him hear more clearly. The fog was distorting the sound and the direction, making it nearly impossible to tell if there were ten men or a hundred, if they were a hundred paces away or ten. He did not have to work half so hard to hear Rose's fearful breaths puffing into the mist; she was superstitious and had seen a raven with a bloody beak fly over the cottage earlier in the day. It was a clear harbinger, so she said, that death would be coming to their door.

  “Take the bairns an' get back inside,” he ordered quietly. “Tell ma sister tae ready the trapdoor.”

  “Holy mither, ye dinna think it's the English sojers, dae ye?”

  The thought had occurred to him, but he dismissed it almost as fast. Nearby Inverurie Castle was a Jacobite stronghold and the Sassenachs had not proven to be stupid enough to wander too deeply into the thickly wooded glens thereabout. Moreover, with news of Wade and Cumberland's forced delay, most of the government troops had been withdrawn to Edinburgh.

  “Just get inside an' be ready tae stow yerselves in the hidey-hole if need be.”

  He waited until she had gone, then edged closer to the corner of the low-slung roof of his clachan. His firelock was hidden beneath the thatch, an arm's reach away, as was his taugh-cath, an ax forged in the hills of Lochaber. The musket was kept loaded, but it had rained earlier in the day and the powder would be damp. Or it might be just dry enough to misfire and take out his eye; then how well would he be able to protect his wife and family? Only last week he'd heard of a good woman raped by the English and left naked for her husband to find when he came home from the fields. And just last month he'd had to bury a brace of Sassenachs in a nearby bog after they had insultingly offered his sister a penny to spread her legs for them. The slut had been willing and the penny would have been welcomed, but he reasoned their purses would yield more if they were dead.

  This sounded like far too many for the bog to hold.

  Perhaps whoever it was would ride past. His sod clachan was built into the hillside and was difficult to see even in bright sunlight. Perhaps there was no one out there at all; no one in human form, at any rate….

  As if the druids had read his mind, the enormous rumbling slowed, then stopped altogether.

  Something detached itself from the main body and plodded slowly forward. The gray of the mist took on the sickly yellow tinge of a torch that throbbed and bloomed into a larger circle, pushing great swirls of mist forward, bathing Colin's face with the wet stink of pitch.

  His hand inched upward toward the thatch roofing.

  “Is this the home of Colin Mor?”

  The sound of a woman's voice froze his hand, froze his mind.

  “Colin Mor of Dalziel?”

  His lips parted, but no sound came forth as a huge black-eyed monster began to emerge from the banks of gray swirling mist. He held his breath as the beast took on the shape and substance of a huge mottled gelding; his eyes widened almost beyond their limits when he saw the woman perched high upon its back. She wore tartan trews and a green velvet short coat trimmed with gold lace. Her hair was red as hellfire, braided into a long tail that snaked over one shoulder, and on her head a bonnet with an eagle feather pinned on the crest. At her waist she wore a brace of claw-butted dags and, slung across her lap, glinted the metal barrel of a Brown Bess.

  Colin's jaw dropped farther.

  Word had spread throughout the bens and glens that Lady Anne MacKintosh had taken it upon herself to raise her clan to fight for Prince Charles. No sooner had her husband departed for Edinburgh to fight for the English than she was riding about the countryside, carrying her petition to every laird within the confederation of Clan Chattan.

  His gaze flicked to the pulsating orange and yellow glow behind her. There were three more riders, two of whom held torches aloft, the flames causing the suspended droplets of mist to sizzle and hiss. He looked at the two bearded faces, identical in almost every way, and surmised they must be the infamous lady's cousins from Monaltrie. The third man, the great blond giant who halted his steed alongside Lady Anne's, needed no introduction either, and Colin felt a ripple of raw excitement flare through his loins.

  “Colin Mor?”

  “Aye,” he rasped. “Aye, that I be.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Aye.” Awe rended his answer all but inaudible.

  “We have been riding since dawn, Colin Mor,” Anne said. “And we would be grateful for your hospitality if we could camp in your pasture for the night.”

  Colin's chest swelled with pride. “God's truth, an' the honor would be mine, Colonel Anne. I've nae much tae offer, but there's stew left frae supper—hot an' hearty—an' a cask o' ale, fresh brewed.”

  “Our men have food enough,” Anne said, smiling her thanks. “But if you could spare a seat by your fire until the tents are raised, I would not refuse the warmth.”

  The crofter shed his timorousness upon the instant and hastened forward, wiping his palms dry before he took hold of the gelding's bridle. “Ye'll nae sleep in any paucy tent this night, ma lady. No' while I've a roof an' a bed tae offer. Aye, an' there's room on the floor f'ae the rest o' yer men, sur
e.”

  The MacGillivray swung his leg over the saddle and dismounted. He strode toward Colin, his hand outstretched, and the clansmen felt his fingers crush together, his knuckles crack with the heartiness of the greeting.

  “Ye've room for six hundred men on yer floor?” he asked with a leonine grin.

  “Six …?”

  MacGillivray laughed at the crofter's stunned expression and turned long enough to bark an order to make camp. The order was relayed mouth to mouth, traveling back like an unending echo.

  Colin Mor could count no higher than the twenty-three sheep he penned each night, and even that required using some imaginative appendages for keeping track, but he thought, by the sound of it, he might have to crack open two kegs of ale.

  MacGillivray reached up to assist Anne out of the saddle. Though she would have torn her tongue out by the root before admitting it, her rump felt like lead and her thighs ached so badly she prayed she did not humiliate herself by walking with permanently bowed legs. They had been on the road for two days, battling every element nature could throw at them: high winds and bitter cold in the mountain passes, rain and mud on the moorlands. The mist had started closing in an hour ago, and for the past mile or so, they'd been riding blind, guided only by sheep tracks leading through the glen.

  Through it all, the men sang and laughed and joked amongst themselves. At each crossroad, each cairn they passed marking the miles from Inverness, there were more men waiting to join them, all eager and spoiling for the long-awaited chance to fight for Scotland's honor.

  With MacGillivray by her side, Anne had carried her petition to every laird within Clan Chattan. A few were understandably reluctant to openly defy their chief, but in the end, she had come away with ninety-seven signatures, shy of the requisite hundred by only three. Scores of tents and campfires had littered the open fields around Dunmaglass, for MacGillivray's stronghold had become their headquarters and gathering place. Out of necessity, Anne had left Drummuir House and taken up residence at Dunmaglass, surrounded and protected by a personal guard that included John, Gillies MacBean, at least two of her three cousins—the third, usually Eneas since the twins did not like to be separated for long, rode back and forth to Aberdeen conveying messages to and from Fearchar—and never any fewer than twenty armed clansmen bristling with weaponry.

  The wound in MacGillivray's shoulder had healed remarkably swiftly, with no apparent lingering stiffness. If anything, she marveled daily at his strength, watching him practice in mock battles with his men in the mornings, slashing the great steel blade of his to and fro until his face ran with sweat. Afternoons were spent going farm to farm assuring the other lairds he was more than capable of assuming a battlefield command. Evenings he supervised the small armory that had taken over the main room of Dunmaglass. Guns, targes, and swords filled every inch of empty space, with men hunched over long trestle tables day and night working with lead molds to make shot, others with casks of black powder to measure and fill paper cartridges.

  Most men had come into the glen with swords and pikes, some with muskets and Lochaber axes, but there were those who came with just their hearts and their pride, and to supply these men, Anne had emptied the strongbox at Moy Hall. MacGillivray had put each coin to good use, and when there were no more guns or casks of powder to be purchased through his fellow smugglers, he had slipped away in the dead of night with a dozen of his best men, returning before morning with wagons filled with kegs and crates stamped with the seal of the British army quartermaster.

  He never seemed to sleep, never even looked tired. If anything he appeared to be more relaxed, as if the weight of the responsibilities he carried now was not half so oppressing as the weight of being able to do nothing at all.

  Anne, on the other hand, came to know exactly how her grandfather felt when the burden of holding her eyelids open for one more moment became a near impossible task. Sheer necessity had bade her move from Drummuir House to Dunmaglass, but it was not a house accustomed to female residents. The furnishings were spartan at best, the only bath a large wooden barrel cut in half. She had clothes sent from Moy Hall, but it soon became evident that skirts and a corset were a definite hindrance. She had not felt a scrap of silk against her skin, nor plied a pair of tongs to her hair since she had departed the dowager's house on Church Street. She was surrounded day and night by burly men who had taken to addressing her as Colonel Anne, and she had begun to answer without pause.

  In truth, the first few days had been exhilarating. Riding out with MacGillivray and her cousins had brought back all the adventurous memories of her reckless youth. But now, a fortnight later, the days had simply become exhausting and dirty. The coarse woolen trews itched at the most inopportune times and in the most inconvenient places, and while men appeared to have no qualms about scratching whenever, wherever, she was forced to suffer in squirming silence. Similarly, she had never given much thought to Angus's reluctance to intrude on her when he was fresh from the stable smelling of horse, leather, and sweat. Now she noticed everything—the smell of unwashed wool when it was wet, the tang of sheep offal on a carelessly placed shoe, the pungent blend of body sweat, peat, and woodsmoke that clung to common clansmen who might think to bathe only once in a twelvemonth.

  That was possibly why she had begun to notice MacGillivray's distinctive scent. While he was by no means as fastidious as Angus with hot water and soap, he was not hesitant to strip down after a morning of exercising with the men and dump a bucket of water over his body to rinse away the sweat. Anne had happened by a window once when he was in the process of doing just that, and it had caused her to stare so long and hard her eyes burned from the dryness. The fact there had been a dozen men stripped naked and standing in the snow tossing water at each other had hardly left an imprint on her mind. It had been the sight of John MacGillivray, tall and sleek with muscle, his face tilted upward and his hair streaming golden and wet down his shoulders, that had warmed her cheeks and left her body tingling in all the wrong places.

  It had been equally difficult not to remember how he had looked naked and sprawled out in the candlelight, or how those brawny arms had felt wrapped around her, pinning her to the bed. Harder still not to recall all that heat and strength crowding her against the wall of a booth at the fairground, his hands pressing boldly between her thighs, daring them to open that she might feel what else he had to offer.

  It did not help her concentration either that he was rather cavalier about his dress. In the comfort of his own home he favored little more than a long, loose fitting shirt and short breacan kilt. The former was often left unlaced, the edges parted carelessly over the reddish gold mat of hair that covered his chest. Nor was he reluctant to slip one of his large hands beneath the cambric and scratch absently at a rib or breast while he was engaged in a conversation with his men, and she suspected he was completely unaware of the effect when he raked his fingers through his hair and left the golden mane scattered and boyishly disheveled.

  He smelled wonderful as well, for it was a rare occasion that found John MacGillivray without a cigar clamped between his teeth. Pipes were as commonplace as dirks and dags in a man's belt, but cigars were an extravagant luxury, one of the few he indulged himself as a reasonably wealthy laird. It was also one he kept to himself despite the often blatant hints from the Farquharson twins that they might enjoy a draw with their evening tankards of ale. He ignored any and all appeals to his sense of hospitality, and in spite of a thorough—and decidedly ill-bred—search of the cabinets and cupboards of Dunmaglass, the lads could not discover where he hoarded his supply.

  Anne found the scent heady and at times uncomfortably arousing, especially if he happened to be seated at the table while engaged in a debate, his chair tilted precariously back on the two hind legs, a glare on his face like that of a lion contemplating his next meal. Or when he leaned close to look at something over her shoulder and she could feel the silk of his hair on her cheek, the warmth of his breath on her s
kin.

  Or when she was cold and tired and her legs ached with cramps from riding all day, and he stood beside her, his arm remaining around her waist for support while she wobbled and chose to lean against him rather than slide into a heap on the ground.

  “If ye'll come this way, Colonel Anne,” said Colin Mor, bowing awkwardly as he held a hand out toward the door of his cottage, “ma wife Rose will be glad tae pour ye a dram o' hot broth tae warm yer bones.”

  Anne started and looked guiltily away from the smile that had begun to cross MacGillivray's face. How long had she been staring up at him? Had she had another “Fearchar” lapse in concentration? The big Highlander was proving to be every bit as adept as Angus in reading her thoughts, and while it could sometimes be a wonderful thing for a husband to know when his wife was craving certain … attentions … she did not think it was particularly wise to pique MacGillivray's interest.

  Her hands, she noticed, were braced with easy familiarity on John's chest and she lowered them quickly before turning to follow Colin Mor into the cottage. His wife had already relit the lamp and a couple of thick tallow candles; she stood nervously back in the shadows, the children still clinging to her legs, peeking out from behind her skirts. A second woman, a year or so younger, was standing against the wall. She bore such a strong resemblance to Colin Mor it came as no surprise when she was introduced as his sister Glenna.

  The clachan was like a thousand others that dotted the glens and nestled into the hillsides. A bare earth floor supported timber walls fortified with muck and peat, and a steeply canted roof from which hung strips of dried, salted meat and fish. There was the usual assortment of household trappings. A rough straw divider at one end separated the narrow sleeping pallet used by Colin's sister from the larger one he shared with his wife and children. The cooking fire was in the center of the room and on it, a tripod from which hung a black iron kettle. The Mors were better off than most, for in addition to several woven rag rugs, they had a table and two benches. In one corner a pen held chickens, and in another a milk goat was tethered to a post.