White Rose Rebel (27 page)

MacGillivray came in then, greeting everyone cheerily and winking to Jessie who’d brought Anne’s porridge. The Dowager slapped the pages of her
London Post
in annoyance.

‘Would you look at this! They have us all as papists, led by the church of Rome.’

‘What, because the Prince is Catholic?’ Anne asked. ‘He guaranteed religious freedom, and our parliament will be secular, as it always was.’

As with both nations, most of their force was Protestant, though many clans were Episcopalian rather than Presbyterian, the dour, national kirk that dominated further south. The Kirk was against the rising, the Catholic church for it, but Scotland’s Episcopal church stayed silent. Jacobite supporters came equally from all
three. But religion was a crucial issue for England, where the monarch headed the Anglican Episcopal church and their king could belong to no other faith.

‘The Hanoverians will say anything to turn folk against us,’ MacGillivray added. ‘Even that we eat babies.’ He made a growling rush at Jessie. ‘So you better watch out,’ he warned.

‘Jessie?’ Anne puzzled, looking round at the girl.

‘She’s been outside, being sick, every morning for a week,’ the Dowager said.

‘It’s only first thing,’ Jessie protested. ‘I’m fine.’

‘But with child.’ Anne was delighted. ‘Why, Jessie, I never noticed, and your waist has quite gone. Who is it?’ She paused. ‘Will, it’s never Will?’

Jessie nodded, embarrassed to be the centre of attention.

‘Two is warmer in bed in the winter,’ she said, flashing a look at MacGillivray.

‘Indeed it is,’ he grinned. ‘Will’s a lucky lad.’

‘Are you wanting to wed?’ Anne asked.

‘No,’ Jessie got out, quickly. ‘I’m a long ways off that. He’s pestering me to handfast come haymaking. I said maybe.’ Handfasting committed lovers to live together for a year and a day before deciding if they’d marry. Anne wished she had chosen that route now. In June, she could simply have unmade her bed without fault on either side. Instead, while she’d please herself who shared that bed, until she was divorced or widowed, her responsibility was here.

‘So will the baby go to Will’s people when it’s weaned, or will you keep it?’

‘I don’t know yet.’ Jessie became flustered. ‘I’ll get the rest of the porridge.’

She scurried out. MacGillivray drew his
sgian dhubh
and carved himself a slice of duck breast while he waited.

‘A baby would be nice about the place,’ Anne said.

‘Aeneas doesn’t know,’ the Dowager reminded her.

‘Well, I’m sure he’d –’ She stopped. She couldn’t speak for Aeneas. His opinion hardly mattered anyway. By the time Jessie’s baby was born, Moy might have a new chief.

Jessie came back with MacGillivray’s porridge.

‘Will says he’s getting your horse ready,’ she told the Dowager. ‘He’ll put what he can in panniers and bring the rest of your things on by himself another time.’

‘You’re going home in that?’ Anne asked.

‘The road won’t be too bad,’ MacGillivray said. ‘No more snow fell through the night.’

‘But more will come,’ the Dowager added. ‘And I’d rather be back in my own house, now I can. If the Prince does take Inverness, he can stay with me. I should make ready, in case.’

‘Will can take my horse,’ MacGillivray offered. ‘See you safe home.’

‘You’re a good man, Alexander.’ The Dowager stood. ‘I’ll take my leave then.’

Anne went with her to the hall, helped her on with her cloak.

‘You’re not leaving because of us?’ she asked, though she knew the reason.

The Dowager patted her cheek.

‘My dear Anne, I said why I’m going. I speak my mind when I have mind to speak. Alexander
is
a good man. I’m sure he’s also an exciting one. Pleasures are few and fleeting. They should be enjoyed.’ She tied on her hat and was at the door before she spoke again. ‘I don’t think you’ve done choosing yet,’ she said. ‘Aeneas is also a good man.’

‘No,
na can sin
, he’s not.’ Anne shook her head. ‘He hanged Ewan. I saw him do it in the square, that day I went to see him.’

‘Ewan?’ The Dowager was puzzled. ‘I never heard Aeneas had a hand in that. It doesn’t sound like him.’

‘Did you tell him I had no desire to shoot him at Prestonpans?’

‘How could I? I’ve been here. He’s been busy.’

‘Then don’t, because I would shoot him now.’

‘Anne, if Aeneas ordered Ewan’s death, he must’ve had good reason. I’ll ask when I see him.’

They heard Will bring the horses round. The Dowager kissed Anne on both cheeks and left. Good reason? Anne watched them
plod off into the everlasting white, broken only by the stark, black bones of half-trees. To reject his wife, that was his reason, to cast their marriage aside. He’d taken his anger out on Ewan and, by doing so, confirmed himself her enemy. Now he guarded Inverness with a small force while an army of ten thousand Jacobites marched his way. Nothing except the landscape was black and white here. The Dowager would warn him. That’s why she went so suddenly. Anne had given the information on purpose. She wanted Aeneas to know his days were numbered.

When Will returned from Inverness that afternoon, he plodded through a blizzard. White flakes whirled in the air. White earth, white air, white sky, blinding, blinding white. The knowledge of trees kept him on the route, knowing each copse, each individual trunk, the spread of branches whose stark-black multi-fingered hands cupped to catch the snow falling down. His knowledge of horses kept the trust between him and MacGillivray’s beast, never the sudden trip over a blind edge, the slip into a snow-filled crevice, always firm ground under foot. He was seventeen, born to life in the stables, and let the animal go on a light rein as he talked softly to it or crooned a Gaelic lullaby into its flicking ears.

Sometimes the horse talked back, a gentle snicker, the gulp of a breath, turning its nose to the side. It wanted to stop, under the trees, did not like this blasting, blinding whiteness or the snowballing in its feet. He dropped down then, knee-deep in the cold white-powdery drift, to pick out its hooves then walk beside its head, holding the bridle, breathing close to its nose, telling the horse about snow, about man, about war, about love and Jessie and babies, talking it home, talking them both home.

It snickered again as they plodded the last few yards to the stable at Moy. When he led it into its stall, its soft damp muzzle nuzzled him, pushing at his cheek, under his chin, nudging his shoulder. He stripped off the tackle, rubbed it down, put fresh feed out, and ploughed his way through the high drifts against the house, into the kitchens. Jessie had seen him come the last yards, the snow hand-cleared off that window. She was bent over
a roaring hot stove, face flushed, a pot of broth bubbling on the top.

‘You took your time,’ she complained, barely glancing round as he came in, stamping the snow off his feet.

‘Aye,’ he said. ‘It’s snowing out.’ She’d been worried. That was something. He sat and supped his soup in silence, listening to the fire crackle in the grate, watching Jessie move about, cooking supper for the house.

Snow brought peace. The land locked down. Nothing moved for weeks. On the first day after Will returned, Elizabeth looked out her bedroom window to see a snow-made Highland warrior, blue bonnet perched on a fat, round head, standing beyond the edge of the yard. MacGillivray was putting the finishing touch; a twig for a sword. Anne, caped and hooded, ran out to him, laughing. Though Elizabeth couldn’t hear what was said, the white puffs of breath, the way her sister shook and moved told her if it was laughter or talk. MacGillivray spotted her at the window and waved her down. Watching him excited her. Anne wouldn’t always be in the way. Then he’d be hers, indebted to her, and not just flirting. Anticipation sharpened her desire. She began to change into warmer outdoor clothes.

Out in the crisp air, Anne inspected her new fighter.

‘Kiss me,’ MacGillivray said, his breath condensing in water droplets on her flushed cheeks, ‘before your sister comes out.’

‘You can kiss me in front of her,’ Anne said.

‘Then she’d think I preferred you, and what would that do for my reputation as a blade?’

‘I’ll do something for your reputation.’ Anne grinned, scooping up a handful of snow which she showered him with. ‘Now you’re a greyhead,’ she giggled.

‘Then we’ll grow old together,’ he retaliated, showering her.

Anne grabbed another handful, packing some in her fist and chucking the rest as he dodged it.

‘Hey,
trobhad an-seo
, kiss first,’ she said, when he packed a huge snowball to throw back, holding her arms out. He leapt over to
her, jumping through the snow, put his arms round her waist, his mouth on hers. She looped her arms round his neck and dropped the snow she’d kept in her hand down inside his plaid, inside his shirt. That did it. As he wriggled against the melting chill at his spine, he wrestled her down into the snow.

‘You can have me out here,’ he threatened. ‘And be frozen to me for ever.’

‘A m I scared?’ she laughed. ‘Do I look scared?’ And she stuffed more snow down his back.

A snowball skelped against the side of MacGillivray’s head. He looked round. Elizabeth. He jumped up to arm himself. Elizabeth already had her second but missed. MacGillivray didn’t. The soft snow thumped against her chest. Anne rolled over and got up to join in, the two young women taking on the warrior. Squeals and laughs and shouts erupted in the still, white air. Eventually, exhausted, they walked back to the house, MacGillivray with an arm around each of them.

‘Thanks for the snow-warrior,’ Anne said, giving him a peck as they kicked and scraped their shoes clear. ‘We’ll be safe while he’s out there.’

‘My lady,’ MacGillivray promised, ‘I’ll give you an army to guard you.’

The next day, there were three snowy Highlanders, the next, five. Finally, there were seven.

‘The number of mystical things,’ he said. ‘You’ll never need more protection than that.’

‘
Tapadh leibh
, my lord,’ Anne smiled. ‘Thank you.’

‘I would protect you for ever,’ he said, seriously.

She knew that. He would always be there when she needed him. The hurt part of her was buried deep when he was near. She was glad of him, glad of the snow, the peace and rest it brought. All their tomorrows should be this good, this right. The white-out was surely an omen, as their troops came home, that turned the world Jacobite.

The ice that had formed inside the stone walls began to melt. Drips ran down, harder to catch on the tongue. They collected where a cup-shaped hollow in one block of stone held them. A queue formed. Ragged, hungry and crowded together, the prisoners were desperate with thirst. The freezing stone dungeon of Carlisle Castle might have held fifty. Three hundred were crammed into it, men, women and children.

Clementina huddled into her father for warmth as they edged along the line towards the only water supply. High above, through the bars of the small stone window, she could see snow still falling, the flakes like black rain against the grey-white sky. Sometimes food came through that window, a loaf of bread pushed between the bars, a risky gift given by some compassionate Carlisle citizen. Very little came through the rough thick door. The guards were redcoat soldiers under orders to keep their captives on short rations. Hunger wasn’t new to Clementina but, in Edinburgh, there had always been ways to get some food. Not here. Not inside these hard, chill walls crammed with bodies and limbs and empty mouths.

Even through his plaid she could feel her father’s bones, sharp, angular. He shivered, coughing. She squeezed tighter to him as they shuffled forward another step to the tiny well in the stone wall.

‘Colonel Anne will come fur us,’ she said. ‘I ken she will.’

‘Aye, lassie,’ her father coughed. ‘Aye.’

A woman in the far corner, giving birth, moaned and screamed. Those nearest tried to give her space where there was none. A wet rag was passed across, hand to hand, till it reached the labouring woman. One of those attending held it to her mouth to suck. Another woman began to hum softly, then sang quiet words in her foreign Gaelic tongue.

Others began to join in, even the English recruits. The song had become an anthem, the words translated and learned over the weeks they’d been imprisoned.

Despite the soft, black snow seen falling above, there was a thaw coming and a baby being born among them. Clementina and her father edged closer to the small pool of water welling in the stone groove.

Lightning slashed across the night sky, searing the underbelly of stormclouds. Thunder growled, boomed and cracked among them. Rain battered on the cobbles, bouncing high, flooding the gutters. Aeneas stared out at it from the window of his quarters in Fort George. The sudden thaw had been quickly followed by this wild weather. Opposite, a horse stood, dripping miserably, tied outside Lord Louden’s offices. It had arrived a moment ago, Aeneas just too late to the window to see who rode in on it.

The Jacobite army camped at Ruthven barracks. Cumberland’s army marched north to Aberdeen. The next battle would be here, in the north, as soon as winter lifted. Even without the French army, all bets were on the Jacobites, unbeaten in every engagement. Here, on their home ground, they outnumbered everything the government could produce. Cumberland, despite his Dutch and Hessian auxiliaries, had only mustered eight thousand men. The
Prince, if he pulled in all his scattered troops from the areas they held, could command fifteen thousand.

There was scant hope for Scotland either way. If he believed his nation would grasp its freedom with maturity, he’d take his men to Ruthven and join the insurgency. But the Prince, victorious, would soon enforce a reunited kingdom. He wanted a throne and subjects, not free peoples running their own affairs. Aeneas spread his hands to grip the window frame, rested his forehead against the glass. Maybe he was fooling himself. Maybe he wasn’t here to protect Moy for his clan. Maybe it was just pride, and he wasn’t man enough to admit being wrong. Maybe he couldn’t face Anne, humbled, and back down. Not to the woman he loved, not to a wife who loved another man.