Judith E. French Read online

  “Prince Charles has done me little good, and that’s for certain,” she said softly. Her husband, Iain, had caught an ague on the way to join the prince’s party in September of ’41 and died without ever seeing his sovereign. She and lain had had another terrible fight about his leaving; she’d not even kissed him goodbye. It had been a sorry ending to a sorry marriage. “I always regretted that we didn’t make a child before he died. Now, I suppose it’s for the best. I’ll have Corey.”

  “You’ve always been more mother to Corey than a stepsister.”

  “He’s as dear to me as Jeanne, but God knows that she’s as much a child as my mother was.”

  “Haven’t I always said your good sense came from your father? I loved Elspeth well. She was the only babe of mine that lived past weaning, but I always knew her faults.”

  “Grandda, promise me you’ll live forever.”

  “I wasn’t thinkin’ of goin’ any time soon.”

  “Good.” She slid to the floor and leaned her head against his legs. “I’m tired, Grandda. I’m tired and hungry, and I hurt too much to cry.”

  “It’s bed ye need, lass.”

  “I can’t sleep. It will be light soon, and there’s too much to do. I’ve got to count our food stores and gather up whatever valuables the servants have missed. I have to—”

  “Ye ha’ to sleep,” he said firmly. “And that’s an order. Whatever comes tomorrow will be none the worse for a good night’s rest.”

  “I keep thinking about the battlefield. I keep seeing that dragoon’s face. Every time I close my eyes, I—”

  “A cup of whiskey will cure that. Dead’s dead. One Englishman is like another. ’Twill do ye no good to hate. You’ll never see him again, as surely as you’ll never see Johnnie MacLeod this side of paradise.”

  “He had black devil eyes, Grandda ... the dragoon who killed Johnnie. He was an officer, but he didn’t wear a wig. His hair was his own, and it was as black as coal. If I’d had a pistol, I’d have shot him myself, the murdering spawn of Satan.”

  “And like been shot yourself. Ye did what was right, lass. Ye brought your sister and her babe home safe. Now we must prepare ourselves for the worst, for German George’s fist will fall hard on the Highlands. And it may be that those who fell at Drummossie Moor will be the lucky ones.”

  Chapter 3

  Three days passed and then four. Cailin’s daylight hours were filled with work and anxiety. She dismissed the servants—sending all those who had family in the hills away for their own safety—and cared for her sister and the child herself. Of the women, only Glynis stayed. She was an orphan, and Glen Garth had been her home since she was ten.

  Old Angus and the twins remained. Angus’s bad knee and advanced years would not allow him to walk far or to ride without pain. Long ago, pretty girls had sung songs about his daring cattle raids and wenching along the English borders. Now, he sat beside the hearth and contented himself with porridge and memories of companions long dead. Cailin could no more have ordered Angus to leave than she could Fergus and Finley. The brothers were handsome red-haired men in their prime, standing over six feet tall, with shoulders like oxen and hands like shovels. But the twins’ minds had never developed, and they were apt to wander off and play like children.

  Cailin’s sister, Jeanne, still lay abed, showing little physical or emotional improvement. She refused to eat and was so weak that she produced scant breast milk. Her wee son, Jamie, screamed with hunger for hours at a time, but Cailin was afraid to supplement his diet for fear that Jeanne’s milk would dry up altogether.

  Despite Jeanne’s wailing and constant prayers, her husband, Duncan, did not come. No rider arrived with news of him, although refugees streamed through Glen Garth spilling tales of horror. The stories were so awful and so wild that Cailin wasn’t sure what was true and what was distorted rumor. She fed them and tried not to listen.

  “Cumberland’s troops slaughtered the wounded Jacobites and left their bodies to lie like carrion on the battlefield.”

  “The English burned our men’s corpses in great pyres. They threw living prisoners on the fires as well.”

  “Inverness has been put to the torch and lies in smoking ashes.”

  “Prince Charlie has been killed.”

  “The prince has escaped and raised a larger army.”

  “The Hanoverian troops are laying a swath of blood and flames across the Highlands, murdering fleeing Jacobite soldiers and civilians with equal bloodlust.”

  “The scent of smoke and rotting cattle drifts across the hills.”

  “The Duke of Cumberland is Old Scat incarnate. They fashion special boots to hide his cloven hooves.”

  “Butcher Cumberland, they call him. He feasts each night on the flesh of Highlanders.”

  Take each tale with a grain of salt, Cailin’s grandfather had counseled. She tried to remember that, while every instinct warned her that the coming of enemy troops would mean disaster.

  If Jeanne had been fit to travel and the babe older, Cailin would have taken her family south to her mother’s birthplace and begged shelter from the Stewarts. Instead, she salvaged what she could of her family. She sat Johnnie MacLeod’s only living son, Corey, on a stout Highland pony and gave the seven-year-old boy a dagger and a leather pouch of coins.

  “Keep the sun on your left in the morning and your right at the end of the day,” she told him. “You must go south to Fort William and then beyond to the nearest Stewart farmstead. If anyone asks you, your father died fighting for King George.”

  “No!” Corey replied hotly. “I won’t leave you, and I won’t tell such a lie! Charlie is our rightful prince, and our daddy—”

  She slapped the child’s face so hard that the imprint of her hand rose white on his cheek. For a second, Corey stared at her in disbelief, and then his big brown eyes filled with tears.

  Cailin wanted to weep as well. Her little half-brother Corey was the son she’d never had. She’d cared for him since his own mother had died in childbirth. Cailin had never struck him before in his life, but this was no time to show compassion. She had to make the boy obey her. His life was at stake. “Listen to me,” she said harshly. “Ye be a MacLeod and a soldier. You will do as I say. And you will live as your father would want you to do. You will kiss German George’s feet if you have to. Do ye ken?”

  Corey bit his lower lip and nodded, his eyes huge and filled with fear.

  “I will come for you, Corey. As soon as it’s safe, I’ll bring you home. I promise.” She put her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

  He could no longer contain his tears. “Dinna send me away,” he pleaded. “I’ll be good. I will.”

  “You are the MacLeod of Glen Garth now,” she admonished him. “But you aren’t a man grown yet. You have much to learn.”

  “I love you, Cailin,” he sobbed. “I want to stay with you and Grandda.”

  “As your father wanted to stay with you, but he couldn’t,” Cailin said sternly. “We will be together again. I swear it.”

  “Glynis said I’m an orphan now, just like her. She said ye were nay my real sister, just a stepsister, an’ ye’d not have me here. She said you’d send me off forever to be a shepherd or apprentice me to a weaver.”

  “Glynis is a foolish girl,” she replied. “Glynis has the sense of a broody hen. You are my father’s son and my brother. Stepbrother means nothing between us, Corey. Besides, I couldn’t send you away forever. You own Glen Garth now. You will be the MacLeod here when I’m an old woman toasting my toes by the fire.”

  He flashed a wan smile—his father’s smile—and pain knifed through Cailin. So long as Corey lived, Johnnie lived as well. She hoped that she was making the right decision for them both.

  She called to her serving man, Big Fergus. “I’m entrusting Corey to ye,” she told Fergus intently. “Go with him and protect him. More than God, I count on you. Do not fail your little chief, Fergus. For if you do, the ghost hounds of Glen Garth wil
l hunt you down and eat you, skin, bones, and tallow.”

  She gave Corey a final hug, then sent him off on the shaggy brown pony with Fergus striding through the cold rain beside him. Finley wept loudly at his twin’s departure, but Fergus was so proud of the old-fashioned claymore strapped over his shoulder that he grinned from ear to ear. Fergus might be slow of wit, but there was nothing wrong with his strength. As faithful as the black and white sheepdog that trailed behind them, Fergus would guard Corey with his life.

  They’d not been gone an hour when the first patrol of English dragoons arrived at Glen Garth. Cailin was changing baby Jamie’s nappie when she heard the first musket shot. Thrusting the infant into Jeanne’s arms, she threw an old plaid over her shoulders and ran out of the house.

  By the time she reached the courtyard, soldiers were smashing windows and shouting orders. Finley ran from the dairy with a pet goose in his arms. A dragoon bore down on him and and seized the squawking bird by the head. Finley’s eyes dilated with anger as the soldier proceeded to wring the goose’s neck.

  “Don’t—” Cailin began, but before she could get the words out, Finley grabbed the dragoon’s horse by the bridle with his left hand and drove his right fist into the soldier’s belly. Another dragoon drew his sword and galloped toward them on a fiery roan. Cailin screamed. She dashed forward, trying to block the charge, but the horse’s shoulder knocked her aside, and she fell heavily to her knees.

  Finley groaned as the dragoon’s sword slashed across his back. The man struck again amid a flurry of goose feathers, and Finley fell beneath the hooves of the two animals. Blood splashed to the roan’s fetlock.

  “No!” Cailin cried.

  A third rider brandished a flaming torch and hurled it through a broken window into the house as still more mounted dragoons cantered into the courtyard.

  Cailin whirled to face the leader, a bewigged major in a bright red coat and gold buttons. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “There’s a sick woman and a babe in the house.”

  “This house and land are the property of King George,” he replied coldly. “Confiscated for treason against the Crown. You are trespassing.”

  Realizing that further conversation with this English tyrant was useless, Cailin turned and ran back into the house. Acrid smoke drifted from the scattering of ashes on the stone floor. “Grandda!” she called. “Get out of the house!”

  A dog’s insistent bark became a high-pitched howl as the sound of shattering glass and tramping boots came from the kitchen wing. Waves of icy sensation washed over Cailin as she rushed toward her sister’s bedchamber. “Jeanne! Jeanne!” she cried. But when she flung open the door, Johnnie’s great poster bed stood empty, the covers flung carelessly on the floor.

  Cailin glanced into the cradle; the baby wasn’t there. Bundling up a blanket in her arms, she retraced her steps down the stone corridor and nearly tripped over the sprawled body of old Angus. He lay, eyes staring blankly, gnarled hands outstretched.

  She paused long enough to kneel and touch his twisted lips. When she felt no breath of life, she leaped up and ran on. “Grandda! Grandda, where are you?” She raced down a flight of twisting stairs to his bedchamber. Soldiers were already there, overturning furniture and setting fire to the bed hangings. The hall passage was quickly filling with smoke.

  “Halt!” a man cried, but she paid him no heed. She dropped the blanket, darted around a corner, and slipped behind a heavy tapestry, taking the ancient hidden staircase to the rear of the house. More shots sounded from the courtyard, but to her relief, when she reached the postern door, she saw Jeanne and her grandfather huddled together in the rain. Jeanne was clutching a squirming bundle to her breast.

  “Cailin!” Jeanne shouted. “A soldier dragged Glynis away! There!” She pointed toward the stable yard.

  Cailin shook her head. Her knees were weak. She was breathing hard, and her heart felt as though it would burst through her chest. She didn’t care about Glynis. All she wanted was to throw herself into her grandfather’s arms and let him protect her from this madness.

  Then Glynis shrieked, and the plaintive cry for help sent shivers down Cailin’s spine. Glynis belonged to Glen Garth, and Johnnie would expect Cailin to protect her as much as he would expect her to look after Corey and Jeanne. Swallowing her own fear, Cailin glanced back once more at her grandfather and ran through the downpour to the old barn.

  Glynis was on her back in a pile of hay, skirts and petticoats awry, with a yellow-haired dragoon on top of her. She was kicking and screaming, fighting desperately, but it was plain to Cailin that the soldier was too strong for her. Glynis’s green bodice was ripped to her waist, and Cailin glimpsed a flash of bare flesh as the maid bucked and struggled against her attacker.

  “Shut your trap, slut!” the soldier growled. He backhanded her and rose to his knees, fumbling with the front of his breeches. Glynis sobbed in pain and helpless fright.

  Cailin drew herself up to her full five feet. “Let her go!” she ordered in her most regal voice. “You’ve no right to abuse my servant. Have you no sense of decency?”

  The dragoon twisted around, grimaced, and then got to his feet. “Let her go?” He braced his fists on his hips and devoured Cailin with hungry eyes. “You’ve a mind to have some of me for yerself, do you?”

  Behind him, Glynis scrambled to her feet and fled down the center passageway, disappearing through a door at the far end of the stable.

  “I am a respectable woman,” Cailin answered, taking a step backward. She’d not be bullied by this English vermin, but she was no fool. “Touch me and you shall be court-martialed.”

  He laughed again and lunged for her.

  She dodged him, but the stall wall loomed solid in front of her. He threw his arms wide to catch her, and she ducked into the only place she could go—a box stall.

  “Nice.” His thick bulk blocked the doorway. “Nice and private.”

  Heart pounding, Cailin backed up until she felt the barn wall behind her. He smelled of unwashed wool and sour sweat. One front tooth was crooked, and his thin British nose bore a scar across the bridge.

  Cailin’s mouth went as dry as oat flour. Unconsciously, her trembling fingers rose to clasp the amulet she’d worn since she was a babe. The smooth gold felt warm to the touch, and the sensation gave her strength. “You will regret this,” she warned.

  The dragoon leered, showing an empty space where a tooth used to be and mouthing something so foul that her fright drained away, leaving only white-hot rage.

  “Sassenach bastard,” she flared.

  He came toward her, step by step, backing her into the shadowy corner of the stall.

  She shook her head. “Don’t do this.”

  “Relax. You may love the taste of English cod.”

  Frantically, Cailin reached behind her, her fingernails scraping across the splintery wood. She’d not beg him, she vowed. Not if it meant her life.

  Then her searching fingers brushed an oak handle, and her eyes narrowed. “Let me go,” she whispered softly.

  “If you’re real good, maybe I’ll keep you all to myself. If not . . .” he scoffed, “I’ve got a lot of friends.” His laughter ceased abruptly when she whipped the iron-tipped pitchfork from behind her back and brandished it in both hands.

  Captain Sterling Gray halted his bay gelding at the crest of the hill and gazed down on Glen Garth. His gut twisted as he smelled the smoke pouring from the broken windows of the stone house and heard the jeers and scattered gunshots.

  His lieutenant, Whithall, brought his own horse up beside him and surveyed the scene below. “Looks like Major Ripton’s troops beat us to this one, Sterling. No need for us to interfere in their fun.” He raised a hand, and the weary-faced patrol behind him reined in their horses.

  Sterling’s scowl darkened as he watched the spiraling column of black smoke. Another farmstead, he mused. More weeping women and pitiful old men. How much blood and misery would it take to satisfy Cumberland? O
r would the duke keep on burning and looting until the Highlands were a charred wasteland?

  Whithall swore under his breath. “I know that look. Why don’t we just ride around this one?”

  Sterling’s eyes narrowed. “You know our orders as well as I do. Reinforce Major Ripton and give whatever aid he requires.”

  Whithall grimaced. “Don’t turn your foul temper on me.” He swore again, with great imagination. “Our lads have been in the saddle since an hour before dawn. We’re all wet and tired, and our arses feel like raw liver. Bloody hell! We’ve chased hostiles from Inverness to the sea and back. We both know what you think of Jacob Ripton. Let him subdue his own dairymaids this time. What difference does it make if we reinforce him today or tomorrow? It’s not as though he’s under fire from a superior force. Hell, there’s nothing down there but sheep and a few women.”

  Sterling shook his head. “This business sickens me, but orders are orders.”

  “Then why do it? You know you don’t have the belly for this mopping up.”

  Sterling fixed his friend with a frosty gaze. “Are you questioning my—”

  “Damn your courage, man! This has nothing to do with nerve. Bloody Christ! I’ve ridden beside you for ten years. Who knows better than me what you’re made of? You’re no coward. You’ve saved my life more times than I can count, but fact is, Sterling, you always were too squeamish for your own good. What do you think Charlie’s Scots would be doing to English farms and decent Englishwomen if they’d won at Culloden?”

  “Aye, I’ll grant you that. But I’m a soldier, not a butcher. As soon as my discharge comes through, I’m putting all this behind me.”

  “Exactly. So why push yourself into Ripton’s pudding when there’s no need?”

  “As long as I wear this uniform—”

  “Spare me from an honorable man,” Whithall replied. He turned in the saddle and signaled to the troops. “Ready when you are, sir,” he said sarcastically.