‘My family will see she never wants for anything again.’ His scarred face grew sombre in the moonlight. ‘I’ll never forget this. Hope, hope of living.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘I didn’t realize what it is to lose something so normal.’
‘Don’t cry,’ Anne said, slowing the horse down so she could put an arm round him. ‘If you get me started, I might never stop.’
The sound of a galloping horse behind interrupted them. Anne grabbed the reins.
‘Don’t speed up,’ Robert hissed. ‘It looks guilty. Just let whoever it is go past.’
The rider didn’t go past. He rode up level to their horse, slowing as he came, reached out and grabbed the halter. Anne drew a pistol from her
arasaid
as he pulled their horse to a halt. She aimed at his back just as he turned around. It was Aeneas.
‘Plus ça change,’
he said, raising an eyebrow. ‘Nothing changes, except this time I won’t walk away. You’ll have to shoot.’
She lowered the gun.
‘Please, Aeneas,’ she begged. ‘He’ll die if I don’t get him away.’
‘Is this your husband?’ Robert asked.
‘I am,’ Aeneas answered, his voice hard. ‘And since she’s compromised, why should I care if you die?’
‘Your wife’s honour is in no danger from me.’
Aeneas held up a hand to quiet him as he listened to a sound from the road ahead. ‘But her life is,’ he snapped.
Anne and Robert could hear it too, feet on the road, marching towards them.
Aeneas stepped from the saddle into the carriage, looping his horse’s rein over the whip spur. ‘Get down behind the seat, quickly!’
Robert was bundled over the seat and down behind it. Aeneas pushed Anne along into his vacated place, sat down, pulled her into his arms and put his mouth on hers.
The sudden closeness startled Anne, the body heat, arms holding her, his face so close, the pressure of his mouth, his breath against her cheek. Aeneas stopped the kiss, moved his mouth close to her ear.
‘Push the pistol out of sight,’ he murmured, ‘then try to act like you want to do this.’
She pushed the gun into the folds of cloth and, as his mouth found hers again, wrapped her arms round his neck. The warmth of his lips moved against hers, and a familiar desire rose like
memory in her to a desperate wanting. His body moved closer, pressed hard to her, his right arm round her, holding her tight to him. Between them, his left hand moved up to the pistol at his waist. The marching feet, more than two pairs, were close now. Maybe they would go on past.
‘Halt!’ The feet stopped. ‘Oi, you!’ the same voice called.
Aeneas broke off the kiss. In the dark, his eyes shone as he looked into hers.
‘Just when life gets interesting,’ he said, that almost-forgotten half-smile on his mouth. He looked round, keeping her held against him, his right arm still across their bodies, masking his gun, hand holding her waist, towards the speaker.
Anne turned too. The man who spoke was a sergeant, musket in his hands. Three redcoat privates were with him, weapons shouldered. One stood behind the sergeant who’d come forward beside the horse, facing Aeneas. The other two hung back near the carriage horse’s head. They were from Wolfe’s regiment, red coats with yellow facings, a watch patrol heading back to town. They all seemed amused. Against her side, she could feel Aeneas’s left hand tighten on his pistol. He couldn’t draw and shoot before the sergeant fired. She slid her own hands into the folds of the
arasaid
, gripped both her guns.
‘Captain, is it?’ the sergeant said, noting Aeneas’s uniform. ‘Then you’ll have a name, and orders to be out at this time.’
His men sniggered, clearly thinking the clandestine meeting on this quiet road was exactly as it appeared, an adulterous tryst.
‘Couldn’t you spare the lady’s blushes, Sergeant,’ Aeneas answered, letting go of Anne, ‘and just go on your way?’
There was more tittering from the three privates. The sergeant grinned, as if he shared the joke. He shifted the musket a fraction. There was no thumb on his right hand.
‘We’ll take care of the lady,’ he snorted as crude laughter spluttered behind him. ‘You worry about yourself.’
Anne fired through the tartan cloth. The shot made a round hole in the sergeant’s forehead. Aeneas drew his pistol, aimed and fired in one smooth move, dropping the private behind. As he leapt
to the ground, drawing his sword, Anne pulled her other pistol out, aimed and fired at the third redcoat. Aeneas swung his sword across the throat of the fourth. Their bodies crumpled to the road.
There was a scuffle from behind the seat. Robert’s head appeared, peering over. He gaped at the four bodies lying twisted as they’d landed, on either side of the carriage horse, then he let out a low whistle.
‘I’m glad we’re all on the same side.’
‘I’ve met these men before.’ Aeneas sheathed his sword and dragged the thumbless sergeant’s body away from the horse. ‘This one, for certain. They were overdue for death.’
‘We should move fast,’ Anne said, ‘in case the shots were heard.’
‘Can you ride?’ Aeneas asked Robert.
He nodded, getting himself out of the carriage.
‘Take my horse.’ Aeneas held out the reins. ‘Go on through Nairn to Elgin. The farrier there will give you money for him and put you on a fishing boat at Lossiemouth.’
‘You two will be all right?’
‘If we get away without being seen,’ Aeneas said. ‘But you’ll have a reputation as a warrior when your escape’s discovered and this lot are found.’
Robert rode the horse round to Anne, leant over and kissed her.
‘If you’re ever done with him,’ he winked, ‘send him my way.’
‘Go safely, Robert,’ she urged as Aeneas got back into the seat beside her. ‘Good speed.’ For some inexplicable reason her eyes filled with tears.
The young paymaster swung the horse round, kicked it away and rode off, fast, into the night. Aeneas lifted the reins, snapping them as he gave a curt command to the horse, and they were off. Tears blinded Anne, no matter how she dashed them away. A lump swelled in her throat. She buried her face in the
arasaid
’s warm woollen cloth and sobbed, broken-hearted, as the carriage picked up speed, taking them through the night, back to Moy, and home safe.
She was still weeping, great, deep, agonizing sobs that shook her whole body, when they pulled up in the yard. Aeneas shouted to Shameless to see to the horse, then he lifted her out of the seat, carried her into the house and up the stairs. In her room, he laid her on the bed, and she turned her face into the pillow, body heaving. Jessie was not long behind them, bringing ale and wine.
‘I’ll brew tea as well,’ she said. Glancing at the bed, she saw the hole burnt through the
arasaid
. ‘Is Anne hurt, is she shot?’
‘No.’ Aeneas shook his head. ‘Hurting, not hurt. Don’t fret for the tea.’
‘She has a lot to grieve for,’ Jessie said. ‘Crying will help.’ She left them to it.
All that night, Aeneas lay beside Anne, holding her, stroking her hair, murmuring words of love and comfort. Gradually, her crying slowed and ceased. Worn out, she fell asleep, still in his arms. He lay a long time, his cheek resting on her head, taking in the sleeping scent of her, his woman. Even when she’d thought her rescue was threatened by him, she didn’t shoot, couldn’t. She asked for his help instead. He hadn’t lost her. It was she who got the first shot off, to save his life, and left herself exposed, relying on his support. Relying on him? No, he hadn’t lost her, he had thrown her away. For hours, he lay, tormented by his own guilt. Eventually, he fell asleep. When he woke, she was gone.
Anne walked Pibroch across the battlefield. In the morning sun, it was quiet, so quiet, and peaceful. Coarse moorland grass sprouted green hummocks among the clumps of purple heather. Even the long graves had almost blended in, nature taking life back to its heartland. She walked along them, slowly, knowing he was there and there was no telling where. But it was the last moment of life and not dead bones she looked for. She wasn’t certain she could find the right spot till she saw the stone.
Well of the Dead
, it read.
Here the Chief of the MacGillivrays fell.
On her knees in front of it, she drew her dirk, pushed the blade into the ground and opened up the soil. Reaching into her dress, she took out his note and looked again at the written hand. He was present in it, such a personal stamp, part of him, his own writing of his name. For a long time, she sat, just holding it in her hands. Then she pressed it to her lips, folded it and pushed the paper into the slot in the earth.
‘So you know I came,’ she whispered.
With the handle of her dirk, she pushed the edges of soil together, closing the wounded earth back over it. She cleaned the blade on the grass, pushed it back in her belt and leant forward, tracing the writing on the stone with her fingertips.
‘Slàn leat, mo luaidh,’
she said. ‘Goodbye, my love.’
She rose, took Pibroch’s reins and turned. Several yards away, Aeneas stood beside his horse, watching her. On the spongy ground, she had not heard feet or hooves approach. She walked over to him, stopped close enough to reach out and touch, looking up into his eyes.
‘It’s a fine stone,’ she said, knowing he had put it there.
‘I loved him too.’
‘I know.’ Last night, he stood beside her, risking his own life for a man he didn’t know, to save her. It was what he’d always done, tried to protect those he cared for. ‘I am so sorry,’ she said. ‘I gave you a world of great pain and loss.’
He closed his eyes for a moment, from hurt or relief she couldn’t tell, then he put his hands on her shoulders.
‘No, Anne,
’s mis’ a tha duilich
,’ he said. ‘It’s me who is sorry, and ashamed. If we’d been together in this, it would not have ended here, or like this. My place was with you.’
She slid her arms round his waist and drew close to him, resting her head on his chest, hearing his heart beat strongly inside him. The fight had gone out of her. Her spirit was spent. She’d done all she could, but it would never be enough. There was no way back to what was lost, and she couldn’t imagine the future.
‘Has it ended?’
‘No.’ He looked down at her. ‘We’re only defeated if we give up. There will be other ways.’
She wasn’t sure what question he answered, or which she had asked. They were irretrievably bound together because others had made it so. She was his prisoner. Could they truly choose each other when they couldn’t choose otherwise? She put her hand in his and they walked the horses to the edge of the moor.
‘Last night,’ she said, ‘you knew an escape route.’
‘It was for us. If they’d tried to hang you, or take you to the boats, we’d be in France now. Moy would belong to an Englishman.’
He would have given it up, put her before himself, before clan and country. All those long weeks in jail, she hadn’t been alone. He’d watched over her. The food that came, Morag’s care, an escape arranged. He chose her even then, as he had from the first and through everything that parted them, just as he’d vowed; his sword and clan in her defence, for only death would part them now. No, the future couldn’t be imagined, only that she wanted to live it with this man.
‘Let’s go home,’ she said.
∗
After breakfast, James Ray and his wife set off in their packed carriage, heading south out of Inverness. With his tour of duty done, they, too, were going home.
‘Can we stop at Moy Hall on the way?’ Helen asked. ‘It would be nice to say goodbye to your captain and his wife.’
‘No.’ Ray was blunt. ‘The sooner I get you back to civilization the better. I haven’t been at all happy with your behaviour since we came here.’
‘We could have gone by boat,’ she said, looking the other way. Her husband suffered seasickness. He didn’t like reminding of it. ‘Oh, look.’ She pointed. They were passing a group of ruined turf cotts, only one of which remained whole. Smoke drifted through its roof. ‘Aren’t those the turf houses we came past on our way here, where we first met Colonel Anne? I wonder what happened to them.’
‘Be quiet!’ Ray pulled the coach to a stop. He was looking the opposite way, up the gentle slope on the other side of the road. Half-way up, the figure of a woman crouched near a cow, milking it. There was something familiar about her. He got down, drew his sword and started up the slope.
The old woman bent over beside the cow worked its udders rhythmically. Pale, creamy milk scooshed into the wooden pail. Her head was tucked into the beast’s rump, turned to one side. In the corner of her eye, she saw the man creep closer, drawing his pistol as he came.
‘You there!’ he called when he was near enough.
She did not respond, though her eye went down to the wooden shaft lying in the long grass beside her. The man was right behind her.
‘Are you deaf ?’ he shouted.
She jumped, snatched the shaft up, turned and thrust. The pitchfork dug deep into the man’s gut. She jerked it upwards, grinned a maniacal gap-toothed grin.
Ray shuddered on the end of the prongs. His head jolted, his eyes widened. The sword dropped from his hand. His mouth opened. Blood dribbled from it. He tried to bring the pistol round.
‘Danns, a Shasannaich!’
Meg snarled, twisting the fork again and again, up into his rib cage. ‘Dance!’
The pistol fired, uselessly. Blood spurted from Ray’s open mouth. He was still upright, impaled on the pitchfork, but his life was ended.
Hearing the shot, Helen stood up in the carriage, looking up the slope. Her husband was still there, jumping about angrily in front of the woman. She sat back down and waited.
Up on the hill, the old woman let the Englishman’s body drop, stabbed her pitchfork in the soil to clean it, gathered up her pail and hurried off.
A culture was dying. Almost overnight, tartan vanished from the land. Yarn-dyers emptied vats of bright colours. Looms clacked busily with browns and greys. Bonnets, belts and brooches were put aside, bagpipes burnt. Dancing ceased. The old songs died away. Men put on the unmanly Lowland clothes, cursing the inconvenient discomfort as they did. Women turned their
arasaidean
to blankets, their tongues to learning new words. The Gaelic slunk behind locked doors as English stumbled on to the streets. Weapons were delivered up for destruction. The British army began a systematic search of every house for any arms that were not surrendered, looting and brutalizing again as they went.