‘What have you done? I wanted that man alive!’
A hand touched her shoulder, another on her back, turning her round.
‘You’ll catch your death, dear,’ a woman said, drawing Anne’s hood back over. It was Helen, James Ray’s wife. ‘You shouldn’t be out.’ She propelled Anne, arm round her waist, in the direction she’d turned her, back across the square, away from the gallows, towards the other side.
Beside the gibbet, Hawley was apoplectic, screeching at Aeneas and Ray.
‘You’ll pay for this!’ He whirled round to yell at the hangman. ‘Cut him down! Cut him down!’
Ewan’s body slammed, face down, to the ground beneath the trap.
‘I wasn’t finished with him,’ Hawley raged. ‘I wanted him drawn. The sight of his own gut might’ve loosened his tongue.’
Aeneas looked at the dead cottar’s flayed back. Deep gouges gaped open, black with crusted blood. Exposed bone showed through.
‘I doubt it,’ he said, grimly. ‘He’s a cottar. He would have nothing to tell.’
‘Do you think I’m a fool, M
c
Intosh?’ Spittle frothed at the side of Hawley’s skinny mouth. ‘He knew where your wife is!’
Ray looked round for his own wife, wondering where she’d gone. His eyes searched the crowd, the square. Across the far side, he caught a movement, the flutter of Helen’s dress, two women vanishing between the stalls. He headed off after her, pushing through the crowd around the gibbet.
‘Cross me again, M
c
Intosh,’ Hawley ranted, ‘and you will dance on the gallows next!’
Aeneas drew a deep, hurting breath. Peace was all he’d been able to give Ewan. Anne had even more to answer for now; her whereabouts had led the clansman to this tormented death. Hawley was just a disease, a symptom, of what they’d done to themselves, but the sick love of torture and the rope was all his own. Icy calm, Aeneas stared contemptuously into the general’s furious eyes.
‘Every man should dance,’ he said, ‘before he dies.’
Reaching the other side of the square, Helen gave Anne’s waist a quick squeeze.
‘We, the officers’ wives, we all think you’re wonderful.’ She pushed Anne into an alley. ‘Now go, go quickly,’ she urged.
Anne gave her a look of gratitude, thrust the flagon of ale into Helen’s hands and hurried away through the close.
‘And stay alive,’ Helen whispered. She drew a deep breath, balanced the flagon on her arm, smoothed down her dress and turned out of the alley. Her husband stepped in front of her.
‘You came in here with a woman,’ Ray accused.
‘Indeed not,’ she held the flagon out. ‘You were busy. I came over to buy ale. Then I was caught short.’
‘A woman I think I recognized,’ he corrected, pushing her aside to glance down the close.
Fearfully, Helen squinted around him. The alley was empty. Anne was gone.
‘I didn’t see any woman, dear,’ Helen smiled. ‘I was relieving myself.’
MacGillivray stood on the carse looking up at Stirling Castle. He’d seen it before, while on a cattle raid in his youth. It was the gateway between Lowlands and Highlands, a fine castle, seeming to grow naturally out of the high rocky crag on which it stood. The flat carse-land all around meant it had a fine view of the land below. Like Edinburgh Castle and the three Highland forts, it had been garrisoned by British troops since the Union, as if the Scots were a subjugated people. When the rising began, those garrisons retreated behind their defences and stayed, immovable. The Prince was determined to remove this one. A company of the
Écossais Royaux
, sent by King Louis to support the Jacobite forces left in Scotland when the main body invaded England, had arrived from Perth. With them, they brought battering cannon, now being positioned to assault the castle. Every now and then, the garrison inside fired off a shot or two, but the Jacobites were well out of range.
‘You think they would’ve run out by now,’ Donald Fraser said. The blacksmith stood at MacGillivray’s elbow. They’d begun the siege after taking Glasgow on the way home from England. It was a strange city, Glasgow, small compared to Edinburgh. Its people had rioted twice against the Union, in 1707 and again twenty years ago. Now it grew wealthy. Its merchant ships, no longer hounded by the English navy, plied the New World colonies. Trading in tobacco and sugar, it was the only part of Scotland to benefit from the bastard marriage of their nation. Few of its citizens still opposed the Union. The Jacobite army re-provisioned and left. Now they were mired in a siege at Stirling.
‘I think they’re cutting shot out of the rock,’ MacGillivray answered. ‘If we wait long enough, one day, the castle will collapse into the hole they’ve dug.’ He turned to smile wryly at Fraser. ‘Then we can all go home.’
It was early morning, the middle of January, but an unusually mild, wet spell. He hadn’t heard from Anne since November, when she left him at the border. He could guess where she was, settled with Aeneas in Moy for the winter, peat fire blazing, mulled wine to hand, re-acquainting themselves with married life. Aeneas was a lucky, lucky man. No doubt he knew that now.
‘Anne would have found a way in,’ he told the blacksmith.
‘Or winkled them out,’ Fraser grinned.
The exercise was futile. At the Prince’s insistence, wanting to keep a toe-hold in England, a Jacobite force had stayed to hold Carlisle. Cumberland’s army, smaller than they’d been told, ceased pursuit to besiege it. Two weeks ago, Carlisle had fallen. The siege here was tit-for-tat time-wasting. Hunger and thirst were not weapons for warriors to wield. A man should act, or atrophy. Only twenty-five miles east, Hawley’s army now occupied Edinburgh. Cumberland closed behind them. Either they should turn and face him or return home, as planned, to mount a fresh offensive in spring.
Instead, the Prince kept them here. When he wasn’t consulting the French engineer about siege engines, he sulked in his quarters with O’sullivan, drinking. The
Écossais Royaux
had also brought the information that their army
had
been assembled at Dunkirk but dispersed when the Scots turned back from taking London. Lord George now seemed unwilling to confront the Prince with demands for progress. Jacobite numbers were high, increasing all the time, but the Lowlanders were restless, old scores rose among the clans. Soon, they’d be fighting among themselves.
MacGillivray picked up a rock and hurtled it towards the fortress. It rattled into the naked branches of a tree.
‘If the Prince wants this castle, he can wait for it,’ he said. ‘I’m going to ask our regiment if they will pack and go home.’
‘You’ll only get yes for answer,’ Fraser said. ‘They’re all wanting back to their families, before the worst of the weather breaks.’
They began to walk back to camp. North of them, among trees, was movement, massed ranks. The two men stopped, straining to make out who, or what, came their way.
‘Hawley’s force from Edinburgh?’ Fraser suggested.
‘Not from that direction.’ MacGillivray shook his head. ‘Besides, the scouts would have given us warning.’
The marchers were out of the trees, on to the open carse. The strains of the pipes drifted over the distance. The tune was ‘The Auld Stuarts back Again’. Jacobites, then, marching to the rebel song, men and women swathed in tartan, children running alongside. Behind the piper, three riders led them, blue bonnets on each. A tall blond man, wearing feathers, sat on one mount and, opposite, another, less imposing chief. Between them, on a white horse, was it, could it be?
‘Anne!’ MacGillivray ran, the soft pampooties on his feet scudding over the rough grassland, towards her. Before he had covered half the distance, Anne was galloping towards him. She pulled Pibroch up, slid off the horse and into his arms, kissing him, holding him, murmuring his name.
‘Are you back to stay?’ he asked, leaning back to look into her eyes.
‘There is nowhere else I want to be.’
He kissed her again, her mouth, her face, her throat, her hair, holding her tight up against him, feeling the warmth of her body penetrate through his plaid.
When the others reached them, he swung her back up into Pibroch’s saddle. She patted the horse’s rump, inviting him to ride behind her. He leapt up and wrapped his arms round her like an unskilled rider who needed to hold on.
‘Why didn’t you send word you were coming?’ he asked in her ear.
‘George sent a runner. He wanted nothing to leak out.’
They rode into camp between her cousin and brother, seven hundred Farquharsons, M
c
Intoshes and others of Clan Chattan marching behind. George Murray was waiting.
‘Perfect timing, Anne,’ he smiled.
‘Your message was very precise.’
He held back the flap of the campaign tent, ushering them in. The other commanders waited inside – even O’sullivan languished in a corner – all except the Prince.
‘Hawley left Edinburgh with his army some days ago,’ Lord George explained. ‘He’s camped at Falkirk, twelve miles away, and means to engage us here, tomorrow or the next day. I have a different plan.’
Joining the Prince’s siege had been a feint, designed to seduce Hawley out of the capital on to terrain suitable for Highland warriors. Lord George intended to clear their way home. So far, the hated English general had unwittingly played along. Scotland had its own double agents at work.
After the briefing, MacGillivray walked with Anne to Pibroch.
‘I wish you hadn’t suggested this,’ he said, bending on one knee so that she could use his thigh to step up into the saddle.
‘It will help,’ she said. ‘And I want to see this man close up.’ Hawley’s reputation as a brute had grown. Edinburgh offered no resistance to his entry, yet he set up gallows in several parts of the city, imprisoned the provost and hanged a number of citizens just for show. As vicious as their commander, his forces smashed every window not lit to celebrate their arrival. The homes of suspected Jacobites had been ransacked for supplies.
‘Then be careful, he might know you.’
‘He thinks I’m an Amazon,’ Anne laughed. Then, seriously, ‘I know what I’m doing. It’s you that must take care. Don’t die now, Alexander.’
‘If you’re with me, I’m invincible.’
‘Just watch your back this time.’ She slapped the reins and rode away.
MacGillivray watched her go. All he had to do was survive. As had she, as had she. He walked back to his mobilizing troops.
It was a ten-mile ride eastwards from the Stirling encampment to Falkirk. The market town lay midway between the cities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, twenty-five miles from each. Following Lord Kilmarnock’s instructions, Anne skirted the southern edge of it, high up on moorland. Down below, she could see Hawley’s tents, his army camped on a flat plain between the rising ground and the town beyond. When she reached the burn the earl had described,
she followed its course downhill through forest to the edge of Callendar estate, on the town’s east side. Among the trees, she tied Pibroch in a clearing, comfortably loose so he could crop and reach the stream. Walking on down through the wood, she soon found the path that led to the rear of Callendar House and the door to its kitchens. Kitchens were safe entry points; people came and went all the time, nobody noticed. Even the cook, sitting with his feet up on the hearth, barely glanced at her. The housekeeper was another matter.
‘What kin we dae for you?’ she snipped, the minute she clapped eyes on Anne.
‘I’ve a message from the earl,’ Anne said, quietly, putting a finger to her lips to forestall the woman’s shriek. ‘Could you find some excuse to fetch your mistress down?’
‘I’ll gang and tell her there’s a worry in the kitchen I cannae deal wi,’ the woman fluttered.
While she was gone, Anne crossed her fingers and stood near the door, in case. It was only minutes till the countess appeared, pale with alarm, rushing over the stone floor, to grab Anne’s arm.
‘What dae you ken of my husband?’
‘It’s all right,’ Anne said, quickly. ‘Lord Kilmarnock is well and sends his regards. I’m to ask you to prepare a very special meal, a generous one, and it needs to be done now.’
‘But we ay eat frugally at midday,’ the countess puzzled, frowning. ‘And, lassie, you’re Highland. Dae ye no ken the danger ye’re in?’
‘You have General Hawley and his aides lodging here,’ Anne said. ‘So, yes, I know the danger. That’s why I’ve come.’
‘And you are?’
‘Anne Farquharson, the Lady M
c
Intosh.’
The countess gaped. Her nervous housekeeper flushed, immediately embarrassed at mistaking their intruder’s status, then her mouth fell open as the name registered. Even the cook, who’d been listening with little interest, jumped to his feet, sending the kettle clattering on the hearth.
‘Then you maun be Colonel Anne!’ the countess exclaimed. ‘And
in mair danger. The general and his aides are just up yon stair.’
‘But he’ll no ken it’s me,’ Anne said, trying out the local brogue she had learned from wee Clementina and the folk of Edinburgh. Now was as good a time as any to practise it. The countess shook her head.
‘Lassie, that’ll no pass.’
‘It would with an Englishman,’ Anne grinned. ‘We likely aw sound the same tae him.’ She became serious. ‘I’d like to have a look at your guest and would serve or stay in the kitchens,’ she said. ‘But I’ll go if it endangers you.’
‘You’ll gang naewhaur,’ the countess said. ‘It’ll take baith oor wits tae get this dinner thegither.’
The kitchen was poorly stocked, the impoverishment of the estate one reason why the Kilmarnocks supported the rebellion. The housekeeper, kitchen girl and upstairs maid were all sent out to the grounds, running, to raid the gardens, dovecot, loch and home farm for ingredients. The boot-boy ran into town to beg, borrow and, as a last resort, buy. As the cook banged his pots and rattled out instructions, Anne rolled up her sleeves to help skin, chop, slice, stuff, flour and stir. Even the countess joined in. When it was done, she splashed her face with cold water to cool it, then bid Anne do the same.
‘Efter aw that,’ she said, ‘ye deserve yer dinner.’ And she led Anne up the servants’ stair to her own rooms to prepare.