He glanced down with a soft smile. “Have I no changed your luck a wee bit?”
“Aye, so you have.” She let her eyes close and she rested against him, this Highlander, royalist, and papist from whom she drew strength and support. He had done more for her than her own people this day, and the truth of that ached.
Beneath the waving grasses, the uneven moorland made for a rough ride. Unaware she was doing so, she clutched his arm tighter as each wave of pain struck. Despite effort to conceal it, a small moan of pain escaped.
He leaned his cheek against her hair, his voice quiet and low. “We’ll slow down as soon as it’s safe. Then we’ll find a place for you to rest.”
“Ensign?” she said faintly.
“Aye?”
“I cannot see the rest of your men on the brae.”
“No? Och well, the sunset’s too bright. You would not see them.” His mouth twitched up at the corner. “Even if they were there.”
Two Months Earlier
Marion McEwan crossed the moors with her brother, Jamie, and his sweetheart, Ellen. They were on their way home from an illegal outdoor church meeting, which the Covenanters called a conventicle. Marion walked ahead to give Jamie and Ellen time alone together. They were in love. She once thought she had been, too. But her love had been false. And now nothing was quite the same for her, not even the kirk, and for that she felt wicked. She only came to the meetings for Jamie—he paid well for the favor in farm chores. In truth, although she would never admit it to Jamie, she would have done this for either of them. She loved her brother, even though she took every opportunity to point out that Ellen was far too lovely and good for the likes of him.
A distant movement caught Marion’s eye. With increasing apprehension she watched it. “Jamie.” She looked back to find Jamie well aware of the same sight. Kilted horsemen bore down upon them.
“Accursed Highland Dragoons!” Jamie spat the words out.
There were no trees to conceal them on this part of the moor. They could run, but the horsemen would easily catch them. Their only chance was to face them in hope of talking their way out of suspicion.
Without taking his eyes from the approaching horsemen, Jamie said, “Ellen, give me your bible.”
“Jamie, no.” She clutched his hand. They both knew that the mere possession of a bible would put them in danger. They could be called upon to swear an oath renouncing everything they believed in—everything they had sworn before God to uphold. If they did not swear it, soldiers had the legal authority to kill them on the spot.
*
Ellen possessed the only bible among them. Marion had left hers at home. She and Jamie had bickered about it before leaving. When she realized she’d forgotten her bible, Marion had taunted him with wide eyes. “I’ll just share with you, Jamie.” She’d grinned at his glare, knowing that sharing a bible afforded her brother the chance to touch Ellen’s hand, which was as much intimacy as could be had in a kirk service—even if that kirk service was held in a field.
Marion continued to torment him. “Of course, I’ll need to sit in the middle to be able to see it. My eyes are so weary from sewing.” She put her hand to her brow with a pitiful sigh.
“Och! Brilliant! You’d have me court Ellen with you in the middle!”
With feigned sweetness, Marion said, “But Jamie, are you not there for the worship?”
“Aye, to worship my Ellen ‘neath the braw moon and stars.” He glared at her sideways. “With my daft wee sister between us!”
Marion had grinned broadly, thoroughly satisfied to have irked her brother.
*
But now, as three Highland dragoons approached, there was only one bible that concerned him.
“Ellen, give it to me,” Jamie told her with quiet urgency.
“I cannae, Jamie. I’ve already hidden it.”
Knowing full well what she was risking, she met his eyes and showed him the depth of her love in a look. His expression pled for what could not be, for the dragoons were upon them. It was too late for the bible to change hands. Jamie gripped Ellen’s hand and pulled her beside him as the dragoons came to a stop.
“Good evening,” said Jamie, with dark caution in his eyes.
Two of the soldiers dismounted, while one remained on his horse. “Search them,” he ordered his men. The three men were a fearful lot, with skin mottled and leathered by their austere existence, but it was their leader who made Marion shudder. He had the features of someone who might have been handsome in his youth. His nature had etched brutal lines in his features, from which two eyes reflected a cavernous soul. To Jamie he said, “It’s a bit late to be out for a walk.”
“It is not too late for us.”
The dragoon’s tone sharpened. “Where are you going this evening?”
“Home.”
“Where is that?” asked the second. He had the look of a man who had fought hard battles and survived with even harder emotions.
“Dunross,” said Jamie as he eyed the Highlander.
“Dunross?” asked the leader, dismounting.
Jamie nodded warily.
One soldier wrenched Ellen from Jamie’s grasp, while another circled and grabbed hold of Jamie from behind. In the struggle, Ellen’s bible dislodged from beneath her jacket and fell to the ground.
“What’s this?” asked Ellen’s captor with a smirk.
Jamie lunged toward him, but the heftier dragoon had his arms hooked about Jamie’s from behind. Jamie struggled in vain.
The one on the horse pointed a pistol at Ellen.
Helpless, Jamie clenched his teeth in terror for Ellen.
“Will you swear allegiance to the king and acknowledge him as head of the church?”
Ellen steeled herself with steadfast grace and was silent.
“Say it, Ellen,” said Jamie in a low voice. “They’re only words.”
Tears shone in her eyes as she looked at him. “Jamie, I cannae.”
The dragoon twisted her arms further back with his iron grip, and spoke in her ear. “Swear allegiance.”
The leader studied her for a moment and then said, “Never mind. She can swear by her actions.” He dismounted and pulled out his flint and steel. “There’s a chill in the air. Start a fire for us, lassie.”
He thrust the flint and steel at her. Reflexively, she took them with trembling hands. He gestured toward the bible, which lay on the ground, the wind whipping its pages. Her captor released her with a shove to the ground. “Light it.”
Ellen’s back stiffened.
The leader echoed the command. “Light a fire for us, lassie.”
When Ellen did not respond, the leader grabbed her chin in his rough hands and pulled her up to face him.
“No,” Ellen whispered.
Jamie watched with horror.
Marion saw a chance. All were focused on Ellen. Marion bent over and lifted a large rock with both hands. She was close enough to strike the man holding Ellen.
“Set it down.” The leader clamped his arm about Marion’s waist. She let the rock drop on his foot. He cried out a curse. She pounded her fist back to his groin and took off in a run. In a few strides, he caught up and lunged for her, knocking her down to the ground. She tried to scramble away, but he climbed over her and took hold of her hair. She reached behind her neck and grasped his wrist. She tried to roll over. She fought with her nails and teeth to be free, but he pinned her face down to the ground with his body.
Marion lay beneath him, unable to see. Ellen screamed, and Jamie let out a deep wail. “Do what you will to me, but leave her alone,” pleaded Marion.
He replied with a backhanded slap that struck her ear with a painful ringing. She lay still, trying to work through her pain to think what to do next. A rough hand took hold of the folds of her skirts and pulled up. Jamie called out Ellen’s name. A shot sounded.
The man on top of Marion shifted his position as he lifted his head to see where the shot came from. Sounds of a struggle subsided, followed by rhythmic grunting that made Marion’s stomach convulse. A single sob came from Ellen, and then another shot fired.
“Your turn, minx,” said the dragoon as he flipped her onto her back like a rag doll in his brutish hands. As he did so, Marion felt the hard shape of his dirk. As she put her arms about him, she slid his dirk from his belt and completed the embrace with the dirk in her hand. He moaned with pleasure and reached up with one hand to paw at her breast while his hand clutched its way up her thigh. Bile heaved to her throat.
Feeling her spasm, he said, “You like that, do ye?”
He let out a grunt as she thrust the dirk into his back. When he cursed, she pulled at it to strike him again, but it stuck. He reached back for her hand as she freed the dirk. With a thrust, she sank it into his side. He wrapped his hands around her neck. As he tightened his grip, she gasped and choked. His mouth opened. Sounds came from his throat, the beginnings of words never finished. His grip loosened and he fell upon her, limp and unconscious. She pried his hands from her neck, panting for air.
Hearing his grunts through the darkness, one of the others laughed. “Kilgour, need some help over there?”
Marion pushed and squirmed until she was free, then she slipped silently out of earshot and ran into the night.
Moments later, she heard hoof beats behind her. She rolled down a peat hill. There was a cave not far away. Behind, a voice cursed the soft peat that was slowing the horses. At the foot of a brae was a burn. Once there, she would know her way. She and Jamie had played here as children. As soon as she heard the water trip over the rocks, she knew she did not have far to go. Following the sound to the water’s edge, she soon gained an advantage by being on foot. She deftly maneuvered along the bank, over boulders and around gnarled trees. Not far ahead was a small cave. Just as the horsemen were nearly upon her, Marion slipped inside its moss-covered entrance, edging her way to the back of the cave. Cowering against the cave’s wall, she forced herself to take slow quiet breaths as she listened to the men, now on foot, leading their horses outside the cave.
*
Just after dawn, Marion stepped inside the farmhouse. Margaret rushed to her. “Marion! Where is Jamie?”
“Mum.” She had been strong through the night, but no more. With the helpless face of a child, she said, “Jamie’s dead.”
When the story was told, her mother sat in her rocker and stared at the fire, while tears pooled in her father’s eyes as he sat at the table and stared at his hands. It was a good while that passed before anyone spoke of what had to be done.
“I must tell Ellen’s family,” she said.
“Aye. Bring her father and some men to help bring the twa souls home to be buried.”
“Father, you ken we cannot. The English Royalists will not let Covenanters bury their dead.”
A deep sob came from Margaret as she wept her first tears.
Archie said, “Och! I will not leave a child of mine on the moors for the crows,” he stopped, unable to compose himself.
“No, Father.” She rushed to put take hold of his hands to console him. “We must wait for the gloaming. Then we’ll go find him. ‘Tis no but a few miles from here.” Her eyes teared.
“We used to play hide and seek there. Och, how we’d go crawling and climbing. I hid last night in a wee cave Jamie found years ago. It saved my life.”
A long silenced passed.
Archie tamped down his emotions. “Tonight, then.”
May 4, 1679, Two Weeks Later
Five Highland dragoons in gray waistcoats and plaids rode southwest from Glasgow atop pale gray horses. The officer in charge sat tall with broad shoulders and a comfortable confidence. From his blue bonnet, dark hair was pulled into a tie at the nape of his neck. Looking straight ahead, he spoke to his men, who flanked him two on each side. Keeping pace with the ensign’s brisk canter, they rode with abandon, invigorated by the bracing wind that swept over the moorland. Rounding the top of a gently sloped hill, they came upon the ashen remains of a Beltane fire from a few days before. Charlie flashed a broad smile. It was, by far, his most dangerous weapon. He cocked his sand colored head as though deep in thought, but a mischievous grin lurked just beneath the surface. “Alex?”
“No,” Alex summarily answered, for he knew what was coming. Alex was older by a year, with the mighty build and bearing of a formidable warrior, which made him an unlikely subject to tease. But everyone has a moment of weakness at some point in his life. For Alex, there had been only one—one which Charlie remembered in brilliant detail.
“Hughie, you remember, do you not?”
“No, I saw nothing,” said Hughie, holding up a flexed palm to distance himself.
“Och, aye, now I recall, Alex.” Charlie took his time, grinning broadly. “Remember, Alex, when you drew the oatcake marked with coal?”
Even Duncan, the quietest of the group, had to suppress a snicker.
Charlie went on, “Three times. You only had to jump over the flames three times. But you just about did a damned sword dance over the flames.” He smiled with unbridled pleasure. “‘Twas a braw dance, that was, laddie.”
Alex lunged forward to urge his horse over toward Charlie, but Duncan grabbed the bridle of Alex’s horse and stopped him.
“Aye, it was,” Charlie said, relishing the moment. “And when your plaid caught fire, it burned brighter than the bonfire. Or maybe it was just the reflection from you bare arse when you pulled the burning plaid off!” By this time, not one of them could keep from laughing.
Alex said dryly, “Aye, laugh all you want, Charlie. But if you had some bollocks of your own, you’d do the same to protect them.”
Unscathed, Charlie grinned.
They rode along quietly for a moment or two, until Callum, their leader, said, “Do you not want to ken where we’re going?”
Duncan said, “South.”
Callum glanced at him sideways and proceeded as though the answer were yes. “Archbishop Sharp was murdered yesterday on his way to St. Andrews. He was in a carriage with his eldest daughter when a band of Covenanters shot him, then dragged from his carriage and—in front of his daughter—stabbed him sixteen times until he was dead.”