‘
Siuthad!
Go!’ Anne ordered the dog beside her. The black-and-tan setter streaked off into the darkening waters of the loch to retrieve the kill. ‘We got both,’ she told her sister. ‘You’re a good shot.’
‘Well, guess who taught me.’ Elizabeth extricated herself from the scrub.
‘I thought you’d forgotten. Why don’t you hunt more often?’
‘Because –’ her sister picked leaves and twigs from her clothes and hair ‘– I don’t like doing boy things. I like doing girl things.’
Anne laughed, and took the first goose from the setter’s mouth. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Girl things like torturing prisoners?’ She held out the heavy bird by its limp, slippery neck.
Elizabeth screwed up her face in disgust as she took it. ‘Girl things like not getting blood, dribble, mud and sodden feathers all over me. Why didn’t we bring Will or Lachlan to do this?’
‘They’re busy.’ Anne took the second bird from the dog, and the trio set off back towards the house.
‘Torture would at least be a change,’ Elizabeth said. ‘He’s been down there more than a week. It must be freezing.’
‘Has he apologized yet?’
‘To what, the wall?’
‘He could tell Jessie,’ Anne insisted. ‘Three times a day she takes him food. I’m sure they talk.’
‘We’re not plucking these, are we?’ Elizabeth got no response.
‘Oh, come on, Anne.’ Still nothing. ‘All right, Jessie’s busy, but there are plenty other folk on the estate.’
‘It’s their party. The whole point is they don’t do the work.’
‘There must be somebody who’s not going off to fight,’ Elizabeth persisted, ‘somebody who’s not invited?’
‘There is,’ Anne said. ‘He’s in the cellar.’
‘I think I’ll join him.’
They walked on, the dog panting along beside, its tongue lolling from its mouth, every now and then stopping to shake water from its coat, spattering them.
‘Wait a minute.’ Elizabeth halted. ‘I’m not gutting this.’ Anne didn’t stop. ‘I’m not,’ Elizabeth insisted. ‘Anne!’
Fifteen minutes later she grimaced at the soft, squelching sound as she pulled the warm innards out of the carcass before carefully separating the gizzard, heart and liver to be cooked later. The rest of the slimy, bloody mass of intestine was taken out to the dog, which waited patiently outside the kitchen door. This was its reward, a change from its usual diet of porridge, and gobbled up quickly before it took itself back to the stable where it lived and slept.
‘Your mother would be proud of you,’ Anne said, washing out the inside of her own gutted bird before stringing its legs to hang on the pantry hook.
‘I should write and tell her how much fun I’m having,’ Elizabeth said, pulling a face. ‘I thought we were plucking too?’
‘Tomorrow. They could do with hanging longer, but needs must.’
‘Something to look forward to,’ Elizabeth groaned. ‘Sore hands, aching fingers, feathers up my nose and down my back.’
‘More good stuffing for pillows,’ Anne said. ‘If you want to be a wife, you must think like one. Waste not, want not.’
‘I’m trying,’ Elizabeth retorted. ‘Can’t have good stuffing go to waste, not to mention a deal of wanting, or a spare husband.’
Anne sighed. There just was no stopping this sister of hers. ‘I can’t make him give himself to me.’
‘I know. It’s not fair. We get the appetite, men get the means of satisfying it. Are the gods perverse, or what?’
‘Mischievous,’ Anne said. ‘A woman loved wants loved again. Men want sleep. If we could just take our pleasure, they’d die of exhaustion in a week.’
‘Gu sealladh orm!’
Elizabeth exclaimed. ‘You know one who’d last a week?’
They both laughed. Anne poured two tankards of ale. ‘Anyway,’ she said, more seriously, ‘Aeneas has the desire, if he’d submit to it. He’s just being spiteful. So he’ll stay in the cellar until his humour improves.’
‘A little bit of torture might help it along,’ Elizabeth suggested again.
The party was two days later, two days of cooking, baking, rendering, steaming. Sheep turned on the spit, the geese were plucked, stuffed with sweet chestnuts and oatmeal then cooked, the larder and kitchen gardens raided, a plentiful supply of ale and pipers laid on. It was a send-off to those who’d billeted with them and would return to their own units the following day, and for their own warriors who’d been needed at home but would now rejoin MacGillivray.
Everybody who could walk, and some who had to be carried, came. Moy Hall throbbed with life. Braziers stood round the yard, filled with glowing peats. Singing, dancing, drinking, eating and telling tall tales was the order of the day. Anne and Elizabeth donned aprons and served. Jessie was supposed to have the time off as a guest, but she refused, armed herself with a tray and helped. Will, despite Jessie’s constant cold-shouldering of him, carved the mutton. He was a quiet lad who said little and Anne ached for him in his youthful devotion.
‘Just give her time,’ she told him when she caught him gawping at the girl again. ‘When the baby’s nearer, she’ll want someone to lean on.’
‘A man is what she’ll want,’ he said sorrowfully. ‘Not me.’
Old Meg had her new man with her. The
Sasannach
shoemaker, Duff, had settled into Highland life fine, as good a hand at the dancing now as any.
‘Didnae ken what ma feet were for afore,’ he told Anne as she filled his tankard for him. Or other parts, Anne thought, smiling to herself at the spring he’d put in Meg’s step. Somewhere between sixty and seventy years old, Meg had lost her husband and two sons in the last rising thirty years ago. Ewan had taken the place of those sons. She had a lot to pay back, had Meg. It was a joy to see her find warmer feelings in her heart too.
Anne refilled her own tankard of ale and went to speak with MacBean and his wife. Their cottage was up on Drumossie, near Culloden House, and she wanted to know if they still had need of the extra grazing rights.
‘Not during winter,’ the old man said. ‘We sold some beasts into army supplies.’
‘I sold them,’ the old woman corrected. ‘They were too much for me while he’s gadding about pretending to be a young blood again.’
‘The blood is always young,’ MacBean said, winking at Anne. ‘It’s muscle that wastes if it’s not put to good use.’
His wife elbowed him in the ribs. ‘I saw that wink,’ she said, then she caught Anne’s arm. ‘He’s more talk than action these days. Don’t let him be fooling you.’ Then she turned on MacBean again. ‘If you’ve spirit for fighting and winking, you’ll have spirit for dancing,’ she said.
The two of them spun off to kick up their heels among the other dancers. The drums beat, the pipes skirled, feet stamped. Smoke from the braziers drifted through the whirling bodies. A boy with one arm birled about, hooching loudly as he turned the reel. It was Howling Robbie. Anne cut in to speak with him.
‘Robbie,’ she cried, delighted to see him so well. ‘You’re a fine dancer still.’
‘Not so good with the Highland fling,’ he said cheerfully, ‘but I can do most things without falling over. It’s a laugh when I forget and put up the wrong arm to catch something, or to open a door and end up walking into it because there’s nothing there to push with.’
‘Has Shameless been back?’
‘Can’t come back, can he?’ A sadness clouded Robbie’s otherwise cheerful face. ‘Gave me his parole, and he’s away with Lord Louden and them English folks.’
Anne swung him around and then gave him a hug. ‘Never mind,’ she reassured him. ‘It’ll maybe be over before long and then he’ll come home.’
‘I’ll show him I can write my name again,’ the boy grinned. ‘With my wrong hand.’
Anne swung him on to partner Cath and went back to serving. Donald Fraser and Lachlan came to find her.
‘My boy wants to come with me this time,’ Fraser said.
‘I owe you, for getting me off the field,’ Lachlan added.
‘It was your father that saved you at Prestonpans,’ Anne reminded him. ‘And he did it as a father, not as a warrior. You know I don’t want two from one family, and I won’t risk both my smiths.’
‘My back is healed fine well,’ Lachlan said, stubbornly. ‘And my mother says I’m to go.’
Anne considered. It was Màiri’s right to say if her men fought or didn’t.
‘Then you’ll stay here till the pipes and drums call us, and you’ll come back after the first battle. If there’s more fighting needed then, it’ll be one or other of you. Right?’
‘Right.’ The boy shook her hand as if he thanked her for treasure. ‘And I’ll look out for my dad this time.’
‘I won’t forget this.’ Fraser shook her hand too. ‘It’ll be fine to line up with him instead of against him.’
The party lasted all the afternoon and into the evening, when the celebratory mood changed to one of leave-taking, and the singing started. Old MacBean’s wife, with the finest clear voice despite her age, led the songs. They ended with a rousing chorus of the rebel anthem, ‘The Auld Stuarts back Again’, before rag torches were lit at the dying braziers and they all began to find their various ways home.
Anne chased Jessie off to her bed with strict instruction to leave all clearing up till morning, asked Will to do the first spell of house guard and went in to relax by the fireside. She was slightly tipsy
from the ale she’d been drinking all day, but the bottle of wine opened by the fire was a welcome sight. Elizabeth being thoughtful, goblets ready and waiting. Of her sister, there was no sign. Anne poured her own goblet full, stuck the poker in the fire and, when it glowed hot, drew it out and thrust it into the ruby wine till it sizzled. Then she sat, with her feet up on the footstool, to sip it. It had been a good day, a great party, a fine send-off.
Elizabeth appeared from the hallway, papers in hand, when Anne was half-way through her second drink.
‘Oh,’ she said, startled. ‘I thought you’d still be seeing them off.’
‘All gone,’ Anne said. ‘Wine?’
‘I’ll get it.’ Elizabeth put the papers she held on the table and came over to sit by the fire.
‘What’s the paper?’ Anne asked. ‘Where were you anyway?’ Then she realized the direction her sister had come from. ‘Were you in the cellar? Elizabeth –’ she tried to be serious, though her tongue proved tricky in getting it round the words without slurring them ‘– have you been torturing my husband?’
‘I tried.’ Elizabeth made an apologetic face. ‘But he wasn’t having any.’
‘Well, we know that!’ Anne squealed, swaying a little.
‘Actually, I took him some food. Jessie was busy with the guests.’
‘You’re so kind, ’Lizabeth. That’s why I love you.’ She leant forwards and spoke slowly. ‘How is he?’
‘Merry enough,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It’s the wine cellar, remember.’ She filled her own wine goblet and topped up Anne’s. ‘I also tried to persuade him to sign a parole bond.’
‘Why?’
‘Because then he could come up and join us. He wouldn’t be a prisoner any more.’
‘And what did he say to that?’ Anne swayed, curious.
‘He said he wouldn’t give you the satisfaction.’
Anne shouted with laughter. ‘We know that too!’ She got, unsteadily, to her feet. ‘Right, tell him to come up to my room.’
‘Why, what are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to do some of that torturing you suggest.’ She picked up her goblet, and the bottle. ‘I’m going to demand satisfaction.’
‘Fight him?’ Elizabeth was alarmed.
‘No, no, no.’ Anne shook her head. ‘I will make him satisfy me.’
‘Anne, you know you can’t.’
‘I’ll tell him it’s his duty. His honour as a husband and a man is at stake. I’ll tell him, if he doesn’t please me, I’ll take two lovers tomorrow and put him out to grass.’
‘I don’t think this is a good idea.’
Anne was not listening. Her mind was decided.
‘My pistols are beside my bed,’ she said. ‘Will can sit down here. Give him the cellar key when you’ve sent Aeneas up. If he doesn’t please me, Will can put him back.’ She went carefully up the stairs, managing to trip twice but without spilling her wine.
Elizabeth watched her go, challenged by her conscience. Anne would never have suggested this sober. It could all go horribly wrong. Perhaps, if she just sat, drank her own wine and waited, her sister would forget and fall asleep. But then again, didn’t drink give permission where sense would not? This might be the best chance, maybe the only chance, to get those two together, properly together, before the end of the war allowed them to part. A chance for MacGillivray to find out he needn’t wait any longer for a woman who’d never fully be his. He’d be sad, of course, but she would comfort him. It would be a sweetened sorrow. The thought of comforting MacGillivray was enough. Elizabeth took a deep swallow of wine, stood, removed the key from her pocket, smoothed her skirts and headed back to the cellar.
The bedroom was warm from the peat fire. Though her hand was a little unsteady and the spill wavered, Anne managed to light the candles. Unfastening her dress and removing her stays was quite a struggle but she was in her shift, standing by her dressing table, when the knock came at the door. She picked up her goblet of wine and swallowed a mouthful.
‘Come in,’ she called, as calmly as she was able.
The door opened and Aeneas stepped into the room. If he was surprised at her state of undress, he didn’t show it. Nor did he look half as merry as Elizabeth had suggested.
‘Your sister said you wanted me,’ he said.
‘I do.’ She faced him, holding tight to her goblet. ‘Close the door.’
Her head was a little woozy, but she was all too conscious of his physicality, the tense, muscular maleness of him. It was as if an animal presence had come into the room, the different scent, shape and energy creating a frisson of fear. Like any wild creature, he might do something unexpected, dangerous, something she might be unable to deal with. Those who thought men and women were the same kind of beast were quite wrong. No woman could alarm her the way this man did.
‘So what did you want?’ he prompted now the door was shut.
She blinked to help her concentrate on getting her tongue around the words. He was not going to take charge here, not this time. She would tell him.
‘You are my husband, and my prisoner,’ she said.