Clandara (39 page)

“It seems I have no choice.” Katharine saw her father's pale and angry face and leaning across she whispered to him to be careful.

“Take your leave then,” he said. “We will excuse you.”

When they had gone he snapped his fingers angrily and the two menservants drew back their chairs, and he took Katharine's arm and went down the Great Hall to the Library.

“Ill-mannered dogs,” he said. “They should sit with the servants! I've half a mind to tell that puppy to behave himself or take his men elsewhere!”

“He's angry with me,” Katharine said. “I snubbed him this morning. He'll recover his temper.”

“Has he been troubling you?” The Earl turned to her quickly. “Tell me, my child, has he offended you in any way? By God, if he has …”

“No, Father. You know how awkward-mannered the English are. He's just a harmless oaf, that's all. And even if he weren't, there's nothing you can do without losing your neutrality. I only hope you think it's worth it.”

He looked up at her as she stood before him, dutiful and polite and faintly hostile.

“You have never forgiven me for turning out those Chisholms, have you?” he said. Katharine shook her head.

“No, Father, and I never shall. Is there anything else you want now? Your books, or Dugal to come to you?”

“There is nothing I want,” he said slowly. “You may go.” She curtsied and went out, closing the door gently, and he heard the sound of her steps as she crossed the Great Hall. He was beginning to hate her and she was all he had left in the world.

Angus had saddled her horse, protesting all the time that the countryside was no place for anyone to ride into these days when troops of cavalry were roaming the moors and some of the fugitive clans were robbing their own people of food and clothing. Katharine did not argue. She had changed her dress and she waited in the stables while Angus saddled her mare; when he began taking down saddle and bridle for himself, she stopped him.

“I'm going alone.”

“That you're not!” The old man's mouth fell open and then snapped shut again. He shook his grey head and repeated it. “That you're not, milady. If ye insist on going out, then I go with ye. Otherwise I go now and tell his lordship!”

“Angus,” Katharine spoke very quietly. “You are my servant and your obedience is to me. Those soldiers have gone after the Macdonald of Dundrenan and his men. I'm going out to see if I can find where they might be and warn them. And you are not coming with me. If you dare to tell my father I shall let him know you accompanied me on those secret meetings at Loch Ness, and I wouldn't give much for your skin after that. Bring my mare out, and tell them to open the gates!”

She rode out into the open country, guiding her horse down the steep hillside away from the Castle, and when the ground flattened she broke into a canter. Five miles to the west by the head of the Loch there was a wood where she and James had often ridden; it was thick and riddled with small paths. Men might hide there undetected for days, snaring what game they could and creeping to the Loch at night for water. She would look there first. As she rode she thought of what that wretched Englishman had said. “The Cholmondleys went to Dundrenan but the Macdonalds didn't go back there … it's burnt to the ground …” James's home was destroyed, his lands forfeit, and he and his father and his men were fugitives. But he was still alive. Joy and thankfulness filled her heart, and for the first time in many weary months Katharine knew what it meant to be happy again. Nothing mattered to her at that moment; her marriage with its tragic disappointment to the kind, deserving Henry, and then his death … all the futility and pain which had oppressed her ever since the poor fleeing Chisholms took their brief refuge in Dundrenan, all vanished now, because the greatest grief of all was gone. James still lived, and even if it cost her own life, she would find him and warn him that the dragoons were looking for him. That was why she had not taken Angus. For if she didn't find the Macdonalds Macdonalds would certainly find her. Whatever happened, she didn't want poor faithful Angus to be killed.

At the edge of the wood she dismounted, and leading the mare, she began to walk through the trees. The little wood was very quiet; the sun gleamed through it, patterning the mossy ground, and twigs broke under her horse's feet. After a few moments she stopped. There was not a sound, and yet her mare heard or sensed something, for it whinnied. Far to the right another horse whinnied in reply. Katharine turned the mare's head and began to lead her in the direction of that sound. Someone was in the wood, and that someone had a horse with him. If it wasn't James and his people, it must be some other fugitive.

Katharine had seldom been afraid in her life. Now as they went deeper into the shadowy wood, it seemed darker and colder and the patches of sunlight grew fewer. Some of those who fled the battlefield had turned robber, and lay in wait for travellers, killing them and stripping them of clothes and money. Not all those who fought at Culloden were English on one side and Scots on the other. Supposing that the wood hid a party of marauding Campbells … Rape and death might be at the end of that path where she was walking. For a moment she panicked and stopped, and then suddenly the wood was full of terrible sounds. There was a wild yell and just ahead of her a man came crashing through the trees, a big, bearded man, naked except for the kilt, and behind him others followed, but these were men in the scarlet and blue of the English cavalry, and one of them ahead paused to take aim and fired at the running Highlander. She heard her own voice shrieking, and the mare took fright and plunged, almost knocking her down.

“James, James!” she began to scream. “James, the English are upon you …”

“Someone stop that woman's mouth!”

An English voice shouted behind her, and the next moment she was thrown to the ground, and the weight of a man's body dropped on hers. The trooper wasted no time. He pulled her head up by the hair and drove his fist into her chin.

When she regained consciousness Captain Booth was bending over her.

“I might have guessed you'd try to warn him,” he said. “How very foolish of you … didn't you think we'd be looking in a place like this?”

She moved her head away; there was the taste of blood in her mouth and her arms ached, for they had tied her wrists behind her back.

She tried to struggle upright, and he watched her contemptuously.

“I saw someone running,” she whispered. “I thought for a moment …”

“One miserable Rebel, that was all,” the Captain answered. “You've betrayed yourself for nothing, madam. Your Macdonalds are not here.”

“That's all I care about,” she said. “Will you be good enough to untie me, sir? When my father sees me and hears what you have done, he'll accuse you to the Duke of Cumberland himself.”

“Much good that will do him,” the Captain jeered. For the first time since he had met her he felt superior. The dishevelled woman lying on the ground, her beautiful face streaked with dirt and blood and her arms bound awkwardly behind her, was suddenly at a level with all the rest of her country people, outlawed and hunted down like dogs.

“The Duke is not merciful to traitors,” he went on. “And you have proved yourself no less. Warning a Rebel is as bad as harbouring one. You are under arrest, madam, and you'll go with an escort to Inverness tomorrow morning. Like all your people, you made one serious mistake. You underestimated us.”

“I didn't,” Katharine said slowly. “I knew you for an ill-bred cur the moment you walked into my sight. And you'll never capture James Macdonald!”

“Sergeant Brewster! Is that business done yet?”

“Aye, sir. We found nothing on him.”

“Very good then. Untie the Lady Katharine and detail two men to take her back to Clandara Castle. She's to be confined to her rooms and a sentry posted outside her door. No one is to see her until I return with the troop. Quick, now!”

The trooper pulled her to her feet; her head ached and her jaw throbbed; she stumbled and almost fell. He called another man to hold her upright while he cut her wrists free.

“Can you ride unaided, ma'am?” he asked her. His tone was respectful for this was the daughter of their host and a great lady. He was not so gentle with the women of the poorer classes who had fallen into his hands in the last few days. “If you feel faint you can ride in front with one of my men.”

“I'm perfectly able to ride,” she answered. “I'd rather
walk
back than share a horse with one of your soldiers.”

“As you please.” Sergeant Brewster took her arm, and though she tried to wrench it free, he held it a little more firmly, privately thinking what a pity it was that the Captain had to be there when they came upon her in the wood. He was bored with stripping and hanging their miserable, half-starved men. A woman like this one would have been a change. They could have buried her afterwards and no one need have known.

“This way, if you please.”

He led her down the path and there she saw the troopers' horses tethered in a clearing, her own mare among them. They must have been waiting there while the men searched through the wood and flushed out the poor man she had seen running for his life. Two men led their horses and hers forward and the sergeant escorted her farther out through the trees until they came to the edge of the wood. There she mounted and her escort, two stiff and wooden-faced young conscripts from the Suffolk estates of Captain Booth, closed in on either side of her.

“Back to Clandara,” the sergeant barked at them. “Under close confinement in her rooms and a sentry posted outside till the Captain gets back. Ride close now. And don't try to escape them, ma'am,” he added. “They'll ride you down in a minute; they're both good lads.”

At the edge of the wood the sun blazed down upon her as she rode towards the Castle, and something made her turn and glance back. At the very edge where the wood ended she saw the naked body of the bearded man swinging from a tree.

Annie had been crying for an hour; her thin little face was pinched and blotched with weeping. When they brought Katharine back, she gave a wild cry like an animal in defence of its young and flew at the impassive soldiers with her fists. One of them had pushed her hard back into the room, and then the door was shut and the sentry took up his post outside it. She gathered Katharine in her arms, and a moment later the Earl came and they could hear him shouting at the sentry, until the man said loudly: “Stand away there, or I'll use the bayonet. I've my orders. None goes in there until the Captain comes.”

“Don't try him, Father,” Katharine called out. “He'll do what he says. I'm all right, I'm not hurt!”

“She is, too!” Annie called out. “Her sweet face is all marked.”

“Be quiet!” Katharine ordered. “Do you want that English brute to kill my father! Father, don't listen to her. I'm not hurt, I tell you. I went out riding and I came upon them hunting a poor man down in the woods by the north shore of the Loch. Now go away, I beg of you. The Captain will be back soon and then you can see me.”

“I'll have every man in the Castle up here in five minutes and I'll personally cut your throat, you swine,” she heard him shouting at the sentry. Thrusting Annie aside, Katharine came up to the door.

“I went to warn the Macdonalds of Dundrenan,” she said loudly. “That's why I was arrested. Will you still come up and free me now?”

He did not answer at once, and behind her she heard Annie gasp. A moment later they heard the sound of his steps as he turned and walked away down the long stone corridor.

“Och, my God,” Annie whispered. “What have ye done? …”

“He won't be back now,” Katharine said. “Annie, help me, my head's swimming.”

She gave herself up to Annie then, and while she was busy bathing her mistress's face and hands and gently brushing her hair, and helping her into a dressing-robe, Annie remained calm.

“You're out of your mind,” she said, over and over again. “Risking your life to go looking for him. Have ye forgotten that murderous brother and the danger ye put yourself into at the Palace? … What would they have done if you had found them? Did ye think of that?”

“I didn't care,” Katharine said. She felt strangely lightheaded, almost exultant. “They won't capture James. I know they won't!”

“Och, how foolish, how foolish,” Annie went on. “How will we put this right now, with that great oaf of an officer? … Your father will have to explain it …”

“It's beyond anything Father can say to him,” Katharine told her. “Poor Annie, I've got to tell you. This isn't just an escapade, and these people are not chivalrous gentlemen playing at war … Look at my face if you don't believe me. I went there to warn a proscribed traitor, and that captain told me I would be sent to Inverness tomorrow and charged with treason. I want to ask you if you'll come with me. I don't know what manner of place they'll put me in before I'm given trial.”

That was when Annie began to cry.

“You must understand,” the Captain said, “that I find this personally very unpleasant. But I must carry out my duty, Lord Clandara, and Lady Katharine's action has given me no choice.”

The Captain and Katharine's father were facing each other calmly, and, in the young man's opinion, he was conducting the interview with authority and tact. He felt very pleased with himself and very confident that the arrogant old man was about to humble himself and beg. Whatever he did, nothing would secure his daughter's release. She had laughed at him and called him a poor, tame Englishman. In the stinking prison at Inverness she would have time to regret that remark.

“My daughter is under arrest in my house,” the Earl said. His light eyes glittered at the Captain. “I would like to hear your explanation of this circumstance. Then we will discuss the merits or demerits of her action and what I propose to do about it.”