‘King Louis’s after agreeing with you,’ he said. ‘This guarantees the French army will be helping us take London.’
‘I gave you Scotland,’ the Prince said. ‘Will you not help me take England?’
Several of the council nodded. It was a fair request. Lord Lovat spoke in favour. England under King James would make a peaceable neighbour. Others backed him up. Anne was bemused by the turn of events.
‘We fought to be free,’ she protested. ‘
Pour être libre!
Our own parliament here again is all we need.’
The Prince turned to her, as he might to a rebellious child.
‘And how long will you keep it, Colonel Anne,’ he asked, ‘with my cousin always knocking at the door?’
‘Nothing ails me but the wanting of you,’ MacBean wrote. He was seated on a grassy mound beside the river Esk, the sheet of paper balanced on his knee, writing to his wife. All around, on the Dumfries and Galloway hills, troops milled about. Some, like him, wrote final letters home. Some queued for the use of ink and quill. Others already marched in long lines streaming over the border into England, heading for Carlisle. Drummer boys marched at intervals alongside, beating time. Pipers led the clan regiments. The air thrummed. Even the Lowland volunteers, who now made up a third of the force, were in Highland dress. The Prince had ordered it, for effect. He also ordered women and children to stay behind in Scotland but, for the most part, that was ignored. Five thousand men would cross the border. Few wives would let them go alone.
Anne sought out Ewan M
c
Cay, a clutch of official dispatches in her hand. He, too, was seated, writing.
‘Tell them yourself, Ewan,’ she said. ‘There’s a horse ready. I said you’d ride home with the post.’
He jumped to his feet, the ink spilling as the next man in line reached for it.
‘I came to pay the English,’ he said, ‘for my wife and son.’
‘You’ve done that, with great honour,’ Anne said. ‘We need someone trusted for this mail.’ She held out the dispatches. ‘You must be needed at home.’
‘Winter without a man will be hard for them,’ he agreed. He took the bundle but stared down at it.
Anne touched his arm. He was a good man, who’d suffered enough loss and clung to duty because he was bereft. She didn’t want him to die in England.
‘Let the dead go,’ she said, gently. ‘Your father and daughters
need you –’ she paused, not sure of his feelings in this ‘– maybe even as much as Cath.’
His head came up. His eyes met hers, quizzical.
‘Babies wear their father’s looks,’ she explained. ‘How else would we know?’
‘Seonag and Calum were all my life,’ he said slowly. ‘
Ach
, but Cath…’ He stopped, then began again. ‘You think she cares for me?’
‘I saw how she looked at you. More than any tumble in the heather merits.’ Anne smiled. ‘You have a new son, now, to raise. So, will you ride with the post?’
‘I will.’ The grimness that had determined him since that awful day at the cotts lifted. ‘
Tapadh leat
. It’ll be good to go home.’
‘The runners will bring the men’s letters to you.’ She held out her own. ‘And there’s this, if you can get it to him.’ The paper, folded and sealed, was addressed to Aeneas. Even yet, when so many rallied to the cause, he had not come to join them, nor sent a single message of support.
‘I’ll see he gets it,’ Ewan beamed, ‘or die trying.’
Anne walked back to where MacGillivray held Pibroch and his own horse. She was leaving too, going home to raise reinforcements. With half their forces committed to invasion, more were needed to protect Scotland. She’d stop at Invercauld on the way. Her brother’s Farquharsons had not mobilized yet. There had been no need for more Clan Chattan forces, till now. It would be good to see him, and Elizabeth, her sister. Her stepmother, she’d cope with. She hardly dared think about Aeneas, or MacGillivray. He would lead her troops south.
As she reached him, he nodded towards a couple who wandered past, hand in hand. The woman carried a pitchfork. It was old Meg, with Duff, the shoemaker, now decked out in tartan plaid.
‘Edinburgh and ale have a lot to answer for,’ MacGillivray joked.
‘I’m not happy, Alexander,’ Anne confessed. ‘I agreed to accept the majority. It was one vote. We’re half-hearted in this, and that won’t do.’
‘If I don’t go, Macpherson will claim leadership of Clan Chattan,
and that won’t do either.’ Cluny had an eye to the Prince’s favour, had not come out until it seemed certain Aeneas wouldn’t, and insisted on keeping separate command of his own clan.
‘But England holds nothing for us,’ Anne exclaimed, frustrated. ‘They’ll only be more annoyed.’
‘Then maybe they’ll chase us back home.’
‘Don’t joke.’
‘Look, if they beg the Prince to relieve them, they’ve no more love for this government than we have. We go to rouse them, not compel.’
‘So we’re an inspiration, not an invasion?’ She put her foot in Pibroch’s stirrup. ‘I wish I could believe that.’
‘Believe.’ He grinned. ‘But fetch reinforcements.’ He helped her up into the saddle, let his hands rest on her thighs, became serious. ‘You’ll see Aeneas.’
‘I have to.’ She couldn’t explain the way her husband had looked at her. Yet he’d saved MacGillivray’s life. ‘I wrote to say I was coming home.’
‘I’d be a liar if I wished you well in this.’
‘Don’t.’ She leant forward, cupped her hand round his cheek. ‘Don’t make it harder than it is.’
He covered her hand with his own, pressed her palm against his face then, moving it down to his mouth, put a kiss in the centre of it, his lips warm, his breath hot against her skin.
‘There are only so many times I can lose you,’ he said, wryly. He let her hand go and leapt up on his own horse.
Greta Fergusson rode by, all feathers and fur, with Sir John Murray, her neat, little husband.
‘You should come, Anne,’ she called. ‘The shops in London will be a treat!’
Anne waved. The couple’s closeness, their mutual support, again deepened her sense of loss. Further down the slope, Margaret and David Ogilvie, together as always, led their Angus troops across the Esk. A little girl ran up and tugged her skirts.
‘We’re awa, Anne,’ she said. It was Clementina. ‘Ma faither and me are goin tae see the king!’
‘Something like that,’ Anne agreed. She met MacGillivray’s eyes. He looked at her with a kind of desperation, as if they might not meet again. ‘Look after my people,’ she said, ‘and yourself.’
Pulling Pibroch round, she walked the horse over to the three hundred troops who would travel with her, some women and children, many in tears, enough men to make a bodyguard while travelling and protect her at Moy from Louden’s Black Watch. They fell in behind. She would not turn round, not look back, not see him watching until she was out of sight. She would keep going forward. There was nothing else to be done.
When she called camp that night, there were at least forty miles between her and MacGillivray, he marching the opposite way, she twenty miles closer to home, twenty fewer miles between her and Aeneas. She kept busy, helped collect firewood, fetched water from the burn. Neither took long. She had picked the stopping place sensibly, with woodland and river near to hand. November nights were cold out in the open, fires a necessity. She occupied her mind checking the children had everything they needed, talking with the women.
Most were going home to take care of things there, younger children left behind, older parents, beasts to be seen to before winter set in. They sat around the glowing fire, sometimes singing Gaelic songs, mostly silent. All had left a husband to go alone into a foreign land, knowing their man might not return. She couldn’t give false assurances, their dread was the same as her own, and resorted to simply squeezing an arm or hand, listening, nodding, saying little.
Only the wives of the men she’d chosen as bodyguard were cheerful, they and their husbands, knowing they wouldn’t die far from home. Speaking with them did even less to comfort her. She gave up, wrapped herself in an
arasaid
and lay down. The border hills were comforting, like rounded heavy breasts, but they seemed to raise the land up nearer to the sky, unlike the craggy mountains of Braemar, which sheltered and enclosed it. Above, a massive sky shone with sharp stars, the moon stared down. She felt exposed.
England. That had not been their purpose. The Prince. Winning Scotland back did not seem as great a triumph to him. Lord Lovat. Her father always said you could tell a man by the company he kept.
‘Keep good company, lass,’ he’d told her, ‘whatever pickle you’re in.’
Aeneas. His most constant companion was MacGillivray, until she had come between. The black sky arched above her, full of holes. The moon mocked. Emptiness ached inside her. What did she want, who did she want, where was she going, what doing, why? By the time she woke, the camp was already up, bannocks cooked and being eaten. The road waited. It would take nine or ten days to reach Braemar. If she’d ridden alone, like Ewan, the journey would have taken less than half that. Invercauld, family, her sister. She would hold on to that.
When the snow-capped mountains came in sight, the shape of the land began to speak to her memory. That peak, this loch, that hill, this river, they never changed. Woodland hugged the slopes, blazing red and yellow. Then it was this tree, that hummock, this rock, like old friends, the easy intimacy of the familiar, loved ones reaching to enfold her. She kicked Pibroch into a gallop. Half the guard would follow at their own pace. The other half would go on, taking the women and children to their various homes, before meeting at Moy. But she, she was where she belonged. She galloped into the yard at Invercauld and pulled Pibroch up in front of the house, that reassuring, unchanged home where she had grown.
The door was flung open and Elizabeth ran out.
‘Anne, Anne,’ she shrieked.
And Anne was off the horse, arms round her sister, hugging, crying, embracing, kissing, stroking her hair, breathing her in.
‘Let me look at you. Can you really have grown? Has it been that long?’ It had been six months since she left here. It felt like years.
Then it was James, her quiet brother, not sure if a handshake was quite the thing. Anne wrapped her arms round him, pressed
her cheek against his. She wouldn’t embarrass him with kisses. His joy in seeing her had a different expression, he’d always been restrained, but he held her tight as he could and for the longest time.
‘So,’ a voice grumbled from the doorway, ‘are we living out in the cold now or do you mean to come in so we can shut the door?’ It was Lady Farquharson.
Anne skelped up the steps and flung her arms round her.
‘Oh,’ she cried. ‘It is so good to see you!’
‘Well, indeed,’ Lady Farquharson said. ‘I see your manners haven’t much improved. And what is that you’re wearing?’ The arch comment was on Anne’s
arasaid
, the common tartan plaid cottar women wore draped over their shoulders and belted round the waist.
Anne burst out laughing. The
arasaid
kept out the cold and made a blanket for sleeping out in, just as the men’s kilted plaids.
‘I love you,’ she shouted. ‘You don’t change.’
‘No, but you should,’ her stepmother complained, ‘into something more feminine and in keeping with your station.’ If she was pleased, she kept it to herself.
Inside, she had the kitchen prepare some food and mulled wine. Anne threw herself down into a chair, feet jutting out, looking round the room with affection she never felt while living there. It was good to be home. Lady Farquharson slapped her knee.
‘Sit properly,’ she snapped. ‘Anyone would think you were a sailor.’
‘Have you ever seen a sailor, Mother?’ Elizabeth asked, eyebrows innocently arched.
‘
Isd, no!
Don’t be silly. Of course I have. I haven’t lived my whole life here, you know. I’ve been around.’
Elizabeth and Anne burst into peals of laughter while Lady Farquharson huffed that she didn’t know what was so funny. They only laughed more, clutching their sides, beating the floor. James fetched the wine, a quiet smile lighting his serious face.
Her cousin, Francis, joined them for supper. They sat up late, making plans. Following Prestonpans, the government troops at
Fort George had been replenished. The Farquharsons would raise two battalions, from Invercauld and Monaltrie, ready to take Inverness when the forces there moved off. Anne expected them to be called south when England divided in rebellion.
‘They have several thousand troops at Ruthven,’ Francis said.
‘Doing what?’ she asked.
‘Resting,’ James answered. ‘Word is they mean to re-take Edinburgh.’
‘I think they hoped the Prince would still be there,’ Francis added.
‘If he’d any sense, he would be,’ Lady Farquharson piped up. She sat by the fire, stitching embroidery, commenting every now and then.
Anne was perturbed that they were in such close agreement.
‘Maybe,’ she said, ‘if the only land we can hold is the ground we walk on.’ Crossing the border had lost them control of the campaign. Success now depended on English support.
‘We can hold Scotland,’ Francis said, ‘but if we take London, the government will fall. Without paymasters, this army they’ve assembled will just melt away.’
‘So we do need England, the Prince was right?’
‘This is when size matters.’ He smiled at her, spread-eagled in the chair, taking up half the room as always. ‘There are seven million English. They might want new government but not from Scotland. Either they rise for King James, or we will need the French.’
Aeneas, too, had insisted a French army was their only guarantee. Now she was home, the past made him present at every turn. It was on Invercauld hills they first met, she as a suspicious, raging child, he the stranger-warrior whose authority calmed the wild terror of grief in her. It was here, in this room, he proposed, calming her fears again, making order in the chaos of her emotions. On the battlefield, with every reason to kill him, he had saved MacGillivray’s life. Maybe he saw deeper and further ahead than she did. The knot of dread in her gut unwound. He was only a day’s ride away.