∗
Among the peat stacks, Anne’s band of seven roared, fired off their guns and pelted from stack to stack to load, bellow and fire again.
‘Come round, Macpherson!’ Fraser bawled, fired, ran.
‘Move up, Drummond,’ Jessie shouted, fired and ran, bent low, to the next stack.
‘MacBean! A MacBean,’ Will bawled, screwing his eyes shut before squeezing the trigger of his musket.
‘Creag Dhubh!’
Anne yelled Cluny’s war cry, fired one pistol, ran to another stack, fired the other, then reloaded.
Two stacks away, Duff fired, then remembered to shout.
‘Come in ahint!’ he roared, jumping over to the next stack beside Meg.
She fired her musket off and ran to the place he’d vacated.
Feet stopped marching among the government troops. They could be walking into an ambush. Fighting in the dark, unable to tell friend from foe, was a fearful prospect. Lightning shot a bolt across the night. The ground before them lit up. Shadowy groups of men lined the road ahead, hundreds of them, muskets firing in their direction. Further back, more shadows. Rank on rank of Highlanders, blocked for battle, waiting for them. The Black Watch hesitated, the front turning to fall back, the rear pushing on.
‘Steady up, steady up!’ Louden called. Thunder boomed around them. ‘Play something, piper!’ The pipes squealed back to life.
‘But it’s the Jacobite army, sir,’ Ray shouted back in the pelting rain. ‘We’re outnumbered. It’s a trap!’
That did it for most of those in earshot. Men turned and ran back the way they’d come, giving word of the ambush to those further back as they went past.
‘A MacLeod!’ the cry came from the shadows ahead. Aeneas frowned. A shot fired off. The piper groaned, staggered. The pipes wailed to a squeaking stop, the bag wheezed. Aeneas kicked his horse forward, caught the man as he slumped.
‘
Och
, M
c
Crimmon.’ He pulled the shot piper on to his horse, blood running from his throat, a bigger hole in the back of his
neck. The man was dead. Guilt coursed through Aeneas, like the rain running in rivers through his hair and down his face.
Inside Moy Hall, the sound of the storm receded. Elizabeth paced about. They could hear splashing feet running towards the house.
‘If you know how to pray, child,’ the Dowager said, ‘you better do it.’ She was seated by the fire, with a tankard of ale.
‘Is that what you’re doing?’
‘I deal with the gods in my own way.’
The front door was flung open. Anne, Fraser, Lachlan, Jessie, Will, Meg and Duff came in, laughing, hugging, euphoric and dripping wet. The Dowager leapt to her feet.
‘You’re all right, all of you!’
‘They ran away!’ Anne announced, amazed, as if she still could not quite grasp it. ‘They’ve gone!’
‘Oh, Anne,’ Elizabeth gasped. ‘I was so afraid.’
‘Mistook the peat stacks for troops,’ old Meg chuckled.
‘Thought we were an ambush,’ Donald Fraser explained.
Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. The Dowager glanced at her, grimly pleased.
‘Rinn mi a’ chùis!’
Will shouted. ‘I did it! We fired and ran about shouting war cries.’ Still excited, he demonstrated. ‘M
c
Intosh! Fraser! MacLeod!’
‘The MacLeods are with the government,’ Anne said, amiably.
Jessie turned on Will.
‘Then it was you shot M
c
Crimmon!’
‘Oh no,’ the Dowager groaned. ‘Such a fine piper, and Jacobite no matter what his chief says.’
‘Whoever cried MacLeod killed him,’ Jessie insisted. ‘The shot went right by my ear, near took the skin off!’
‘I wouldn’t, Jessie,’ Will protested. ‘I wouldn’t do that. I had my eyes shut!’ He tried to take hold of her, to convince her, but she pushed him away and grabbed the musket off him.
‘Get away, you’re not safe to be out!’ She stomped off to the kitchens.
‘I could fight,’ Will insisted. ‘I could.’
‘It’s all right, Will,’ Anne reassured him. ‘It was an accident, and you all did well, better than I could have hoped. Away to the kitchen, all of you, and get out of your wet clothes. Jessie’ll make some hot toddies.’
As they went, Fraser and Lachlan collected all the muskets and shot bags. Elizabeth took hold of Anne’s arm.
‘You’d better change too,’ she said. ‘You’re soaked through. Come, I’ll help.’
The Dowager had returned to her seat by the fire, and her ale.
‘Before you go –’ she paused. ‘Was no one else hurt?’
Anne spun round, instantly angry. ‘Would I have cared to notice!’
‘Anne, please. It was Aeneas sent me to warn you.’
Anne gripped Elizabeth’s arm for support. ‘Why would he save a prince he will not fight for?’
‘I think he was saving you.’ The Dowager glanced at Elizabeth. The girl stared back at her with frightened eyes, silently begging her not to tell.
Anne laughed, without humour.
‘Saving me for a hanging, like Ewan?’
The Dowager shook her head, sat her ale down and looked at Anne with a serious, steady gaze.
‘He didn’t hang Ewan. Hawley already had him in the noose with the intention of cutting him down, half-strangled, to be drawn while still alive. All Aeneas could do was end Ewan’s suffering. That’s what you saw.’
Anne blinked drops of rain off her lashes, wiped a drip from her nose with the back of her hand. She was beginning to steam by the fire. Aeneas had pointed to the struggling cottar. Ray leapt to break his neck. Hawley shouted he’d wanted the man alive. What the Dowager just said was true.
‘No one else was hurt,’ Anne said, quietly. Being in the wrong was not a comfortable place to be. ‘Did you tell him I wasn’t going to shoot him?’
The Dowager nodded. ‘Truth is hard enough to deal with.’ Her eyes flicked up to Elizabeth, but Anne’s sister stared into the fire. ‘You need to change.’ She sat back. ‘Look at the puddles.’
Next day, cheering crowds lined the streets of Inverness. The hated army garrison had vanished overnight. The Prince, with his entourage, rode into town, half the Jacobite army following behind. The story of the rout of Moy, how Colonel Anne had put Lord Louden’s force to flight with a handful of serving folk, was all anyone could talk about. She was the toast of the town.
‘
La Heroïne
has given me Inverness,’ the Prince beamed at O’sullivan.
‘Without a shot fired, or a man lost, to be sure,’ O’sullivan agreed.
The Prince screwed round in the saddle to glare at his commanderin-chief.
‘You see what a little faith can do, Lord George?’
MacGillivray cantered up, reigning in to match their slow, celebratory pace.
‘The fort is abandoned. The townsfolk are tearing it down,’ he reported. ‘There’s no sign of Louden, but hundreds of his deserters have joined us.’
The Prince nodded, waving regally to the enthusiastic crowds.
‘Send out scouting parties,’ Lord George answered for him. ‘Make sure the area is secured.’
Not to be outdone, the Prince glanced round.
‘And if you find any of their cowardly commanders,’ he smiled, ‘bring them to me. We shall be generous in victory.’ Spotting Robert Nairn waiting at the entrance to a large house, he pulled his horse up in front of it.
The Dowager had ridden home at first light. She stood with Robert in front of her open doors, waiting for the Prince to dismount. When he did, she stepped forward.
‘My home is yours, sir.’
He held out his hand to be kissed, then swept past, inside.
∗
Aeneas knelt by the riverbank, bent forward and scooped water up to drink. It was icy, freezing his raw fingers. After delivering the dead M
c
Crimmon to the undertaker, he’d sent a message to MacLeod, the piper’s chief, then set out to find however many of his scattered company he could. Two dozen of them lay about on the bank, dishevelled, exhausted, wondering what they’d do next. For a week they’d lived like outlaws, sheltering in barns and woodland, avoiding Jacobite patrols. Louden had fled to meet up with Cumberland, but joining the English advance didn’t appeal to Aeneas. He splashed cold water on his face, and shook it off. His troop was tired, hungry, the weather wild and wet. It was time to give up, swallow his pride and take them home. The sound of a sword being drawn made him glance round.
A company of Jacobites surrounded his group, muskets and pistols primed and aimed at each of them. A few feet away from him, MacGillivray stood, broadsword in hand. Aeneas sprang to his feet, going for his own sword.
‘I wouldn’t,’ MacGillivray said.
‘I would,’ Aeneas answered, drawing it free of the sheath. Without a pause, he swung at MacGillivray, who blocked the blow with his targe.
A few of the Jacobite guns came round.
‘Don’t shoot,’ MacGillivray ordered.
Aeneas slashed, roaring as he did. Again, MacGillivray fended it.
‘Don’t be a fool, Aeneas,’ he grunted. ‘You’re surrounded.’
Aeneas swung. Again MacGillivray stopped the blade.
‘Will you fight back!’ Aeneas shouted.
‘Will you surrender?’ MacGillivray fended yet another swing.
‘Not to you,’ Aeneas snarled. ‘Not while I’ve breath.’
‘Surrender to MacBean then,’ MacGillivray suggested as he stepped back, dodging the next stroke.
A few guns swung again towards Aeneas but none fired, their loyalties seriously tested. He was their chief.
‘Cover the Watch!’ MacGillivray snapped.
The guns were turned back to cover their captives. They, too,
were all from Clan Chattan. Old MacBean nodded a greeting here and there as he collected their weapons.
Aeneas rushed, played a feint to MacGillivray’s targe, then swung his sword high and down. MacGillivray stopped the chop to his throat with his own blade.
‘Please surrender,’ he tried, as they pushed against each other.
‘When you’re dead,’ Aeneas said. ‘After I kill you.’ He pushed MacGillivray back, then swung again and again. MacGillivray fended every blow.
‘I won’t fight you,’ he shouted.
‘Then you’ll die,’ Aeneas roared back. He rushed again, swinging his sword round to hack into the targe, then on the other side, where MacGillivray stopped it with his blade, then swinging it down.
Again MacGillivray blocked it, throwing off his targe as broadswords crossed above their heads, faces close, looking into each other’s eyes. Aeneas raised an eyebrow.
‘You’ve improved.’
‘Practice,’ MacGillivray smiled. The point of his dirk, drawn in his left hand as their swords clashed, pressed just below Aeneas’s ribs. One thrust and it was over.
‘You’ll have to do it,’ Aeneas said. ‘She’ll never be yours while I live.’
MacGillivray flinched, his gaze wavered. He drew breath deep into his lungs, then thrust his dirk back into his belt and pushed Aeneas away from him. Aeneas slashed his sword crosswise. MacGillivray yelled. His left arm was cut, the wound bleeding. He stared at Aeneas, poised, glaring back at him, then sheathed his sword.
‘You have first blood,’ he said. ‘If your honour isn’t satisfied, then kill me.’
Aeneas let out a roar, raised his sword to shoulder height and thrust it straight forward at MacGillivray’s throat with all the force of his anguish. He stopped the blade just short of nicking the skin, his muscles and the sword shuddering with the effort of not following through.
‘Did I teach you nothing?’ he raged.
‘Didn’t work, then?’ MacGillivray gave a wry shrug. His surrender hadn’t been a ploy, but he couldn’t resist the joke. Aeneas didn’t laugh.
‘You tell them to shoot my men,’ he bellowed.
The group of Black Watch stirred from watching the fight, looking worried. Their Jacobite guards frowned, puzzled. MacGillivray glanced around them.
‘You heard the chief,’ he told them. ‘Shoot.’
‘No!’ Aeneas roared. ‘You threaten to. Then I’d surrender.’ He plunged his broadsword angrily into the ground next to his feet. ‘But you don’t invite a man to kill you when he most wants to see you dead!’
‘I see,’ MacGillivray said, and punched Aeneas full and hard in the face.
Aeneas staggered back, releasing his grip on the sword hilt. MacGillivray pulled it out of the ground.
‘That’s a good trick,’ he said. ‘I’ll remember that.’
‘For the third time,’ Cumberland railed, ‘we are the butt of jokes orchestrated by this woman’s hand!’
‘She’s a witch,’ Hawley sneered.
‘Your Royal Highness, sir –’ Louden, circumspect, ignored Hawley ‘– Colonel Anne is barely twenty-one years old, hardly experienced, and was in her home at the time.’
‘Casting spells, no doubt,’ Hawley snapped.
‘Maybe she sent your informer,’ Cumberland suggested.
‘That was her sister,’ Louden admitted. ‘But she seemed genuine enough.’
‘Genuine enough to spring a trap!’ Hawley screeched.
The grey northern city of Aberdeen which hosted the Duke and his troops was a bitterly cold and inhospitable place to spend the winter. While it saw little of the snow and ice which shut off the inland mountains and glens, gale-force north-easterlies whipped an iron sea into frenzied lashings of the port and its granite buildings. The Duke and his generals had taken up residence in a past provost’s house on Guestrow, safe enough from spume and spray but not, it seemed, from bad news.
‘Young or not,’ Cope said. ‘She’s a commander to be reckoned with –’ he was genuinely impressed – ‘to rout an army two-thousand strong with only a handful of men.’
‘A handful that were seen,’ Louden protested. ‘There must have been a hundred times that many.’
‘Even so.’ Cope smiled.
‘Nonsense,’ Hawley snapped. ‘If our own informers can be trusted, there were five of them at most, and servants not soldiers!’
‘It’s the same thing in the Highland clans,’ Louden corrected. ‘Even the women and children can fight.’
Cumberland glared at all of them.
‘This country is so much our enemy that what intelligence we get is deliberately contrived and contradictory to keep us uncertain how to proceed. But proceed we will, gentlemen. One day I will settle with this damn rebel bitch.’
February drew to a close, vicious with storms. The wind uprooted trees, brought rock and scree birling off the mountains. Rain poured down, filling lochs and tumbling burns in spate. There had been no news in or out of Moy and little hope of travelling the flooded roads to Inverness for supplies until the water subsided. When the sky finally cleared, it was mirror-sharp, the day cold, frosty. Anne carried the box with the remains of her tocher in it down to the hall table and opened the lid. It was half empty. In winter it was hard for the land to sustain its normal population. Now, all over the estate, there were extra billeted troops to feed.