White Rose Rebel (12 page)

‘You don’t offer much, M
^c
Intosh,’ Forbes scoffed. ‘One sword, a hundred youths and your principles.’

Aeneas jumped to his feet, drawing his broadsword.

‘This sword,’ he said.

Before either of the other men could move or draw breath to protest, he sliced the candle on the desk neatly down the middle, swung the broadsword round past the hat-stand which held General Cope’s hat and sliced the front legs off a small wooden table. As the table tilted, he spun the sword to click every handle off a chest of drawers in one downstroke and completed his turn by slicing horizontally through the sheets of paper in Forbes hand.

‘I’m glad you spared the hat-stand,’ Cope said.

Without turning to look at it, Aeneas stretched his arm and touched the nearest top hook of the stand with his forefinger. Stem and top parted company where it had been sliced through. He caught Cope’s hat as it fell, sitting it on the desk as the top of the hat-stand clattered to the floor.

‘Well, I’m impressed, I must say,’ Cope said. He picked up the half-sheets of Forbes’s papers which had fluttered on to his desk and tore them through. ‘You, your lands, and these young men
outside are safe. You have a command, Captain. I trust you’ll keep it.’ He rang the handbell on his desk.

‘You’re a man to watch,’ Forbes glowered. ‘And I will be watching.’

That was enough for Aeneas. Clan Chattan remained uncommitted. His chiefs could make their own choices. The judge was not going to reveal how much more he could have given. Behind them, a soldier came in the door.

‘Captain M
^c
Intosh,’ Cope said. ‘This is your lieutenant.’ As Aeneas turned to the soldier, a stranger to him, Cope went on. ‘Lieutenant Ray, Captain M
^c
Intosh will take charge of your troops forthwith.’

James Ray clicked his heels and saluted.

‘Taigh na Galla ort!’
Anne swore, rising from her seat at the midday dinner table. ‘I don’t believe this!’ It was later than usual, early afternoon. They had waited for Aeneas, the table richly set with food and wine for the last expected meal before they committed to war. ‘You’ve joined the government against us?’

‘I’m not against you,’ Aeneas said. ‘We’re together.’

‘Not in this.’ Anne paced the room. ‘Not in this.’

‘It’s a ploy, surely.’ MacGillivray was mystified.

‘No,’ Aeneas said. ‘The French will not come.’

‘They’ll come when we put our own army in the field,’ Anne raged. ‘When they see our strength, when they know we’re united and will win, then they will come!’

‘You believe this English general speaks the truth?’ the Dowager asked, trying to calm things.

Aeneas nodded, but it was Anne he answered.

‘It’s the British army that will come now. You’ve just washed away the blood of one of our children. Will you wash away the blood of thousands?’

Anne stopped pacing.

‘Two of our people died, Aeneas. A boy and his mother. Does her death mean nothing?’

‘Of course not. I only meant…’

Anne cut him off. ‘You meant to use guilt against me. I tried to stop the Englishman. He wouldn’t listen. I was of no account to him, like Calum’s mother, a woman. By his custom, I have no authority.’

‘English laws are different. He’ll learn our ways.’

‘Will he, or are we learning theirs? You decided what we’d do without asking me!’ Furious, she marched out of the room then, calling for Jessie as she went.

‘Anne!’ Aeneas would have gone after her, but the Dowager caught his arm.

‘Let her calm down,’ she urged. ‘Nothing will be gained while she feels so insecure. You should have consulted her.’

‘There was no time. I can explain.’

‘Everything you say will sound like a further threat. Let her come back in her own time, when she’s restored.’

MacGillivray had remained seated, trying to get his head around his chief’s unfathomable actions. Now he stood, scraping his chair back and facing Aeneas.

‘Can you explain to me?’ he asked.

Upstairs, Anne threw off her clothes, letting them land where they fell. Her body was rigid with fury. The wardrobe door flung open so hard it crashed against the wall.

‘My blue riding habit,’ she told Jessie. It was an outfit she felt good in, confident of her appearance and strengths, the velvet trimmed with tartan. Jessie held it while she slipped it on. Her hair was dressed quickly but carefully. She would do, she would do very well, and he would see that.

‘There’s a matching bonnet somewhere,’ she said. As Jessie searched the drawers for it, Anne opened the lid of the box which contained her tocher and took out handfuls of coins. She put some into the velvet drawstring bag which would be tied to her waist. Others went into a leather pouch which would go in her saddle bag. Aeneas had made his choice. Now she had made hers.

Downstairs, MacGillivray was arriving at his own.

‘I won’t join you in this,’ he told Aeneas.

‘I don’t ask you to,’ Aeneas answered. ‘It was myself I committed, not you or our other chiefs. But I still ask that you hold back from rising. Nothing can be gained from haste.’

‘For a few months, Alexander,’ the Dowager added, ‘until the situation is clear.’

‘My people will want leadership,’ MacGillivray said, struggling
with the idea of prudence. ‘They won’t come out without my word.’

‘Then you need only hold your tongue,’ Aeneas said.

‘If I can.’ MacGillivray smiled ruefully. ‘I’ll return to Dunmaglas.’ He held out his hand to his chief. ‘But the next time we meet, we may be enemies.’

Aeneas took a firm grip of the younger chief ’s hand.

‘Then at least we part as friends,’ he said, embracing him.

Behind them, the dining-room door opened. Anne strode in. She was pale, deathly calm now, her jaw set with determination. The blue of her riding habit deepened the blue of her eyes to a summer midnight.

‘Will you wait, Alexander?’ she asked.

In her hand, she carried the blue bonnet. At her right side, the velvet purse of coins hung. The dirk beside it was standard for travel. The silver basket-handled sword slung at her left side was not. Behind her, Jessie carried a pair of silver pistols.

‘Have Will mount those on Pibroch’s saddle,’ Anne told her.

As Jessie left the room, Aeneas found his tongue.

‘You’re going out?’

There was a moment as Anne set her shoulders, lifted her head, looked him straight in the eye.

‘I’m going to bring the clan out,’ she said.

His answer was quick, too quick.

‘I said no!’

‘And I’m no English wife to be owned and ordered,’ she corrected him. ‘You spoke for yourself. I speak for me.’ She put on the bonnet, dressed, in the absence of roses, with a white ribbon cockade, and turned to MacGillivray. ‘What do you say, Alexander, will you follow my lead?’

It took less than a blink for MacGillivray’s face to break into a wide grin.

‘I will, Colonel,’ he said, automatically crediting her with the rank that Aeneas would have held with the clans in wartime. ‘And so will our warriors, to the ends of the earth if you ask it.’

‘It might be to the end of your lives,’ Aeneas snapped.

Anne whipped round to him again.

‘Our lives,’ she said. ‘And our choice how they will be lived or lost.’ With that, she turned for the door and left, MacGillivray following her.

Aeneas did not move, nor did he speak. The Dowager watched him but she, too, kept silent. They heard the horses’ hooves clop outside the front door as they were mounted, then the clatter as they were ridden away. As the sound faded, the silence grew into an unbearable emptiness.

‘It will be all right,’ the Dowager whispered. ‘If we’re represented on both sides, we surely cannot lose.’

Aeneas drew his sword and, with a bellowing roar, like a bull caught in the slaughtering trap, cleared food, wine, dishes, glassware from the table in one wild, ranging sweep, sending them all crashing and clattering to the floor as his rage broke.

Anne and MacGillivray rode east first, collecting volunteers from that side of the estate before swinging north and west. The request for one adult male from each family was easily met. Wives and older children, when possible, joined the march. They were as valuable to Highland troops as the men.

‘You’ll want a blacksmith,’ Donald Fraser said, folding his leather apron.

‘So will Moy while we’re gone,’ Anne reminded him. The estate must continue to run for their return.

‘Then my son can be fetched back from the Black Watch,’ Donald said, and went in to douse the fire in his forge.

On the edge of Drumossie moor, the elderly couple Anne had given extra grazing to waited outside their cott.

‘Go on then, if you must,’ the old woman said to her husband, handing him an ancient sword recently sharpened. ‘I will only slow you down.’

MacBean took the sword. He was seventy, a big man with a good swing still.

‘I’ll write to you,’ he said.

‘And have me running in and out of Inverness to check?’

‘You can ask the post-boy when he passes.’

Anne leant forward on her horse.

‘You’re not obliged,’ she told him. ‘Not when you’re needed here.’

‘I am obliged to myself,’ MacBean said, drawing himself upright. ‘Death should come with honour.’

‘He’s only under my feet anyhow,’ his wife assured Anne, then busied herself tucking MacBean’s plaid better around him. ‘You be sure and keep your chest warm.’

‘Don’t fash, woman.’ The old man stopped her. ‘I’ll be back to your botherations before you know it.’

By the time they reached the north-west cotts, it was early evening and word was ahead of them. The cottars stood around the freshly dug grave which would hold the wrapped bodies of mother and son that lay waiting on the grass beside it. Ewan stepped forward to speak first, a V-shaped scar on his forehead from the musket butt red and puckered in the lessening light.

‘I’ve a wife and child to put in the ground, then I’m yours,’ he said to Anne.

She shook her head.

‘I won’t ask you, Ewan. Your father and other children need you here.’

‘Cath will see to them,’ he said. Beside him, Cath clutched her baby to her side.

‘As my own,’ she said.

Old Meg stepped forward and spat.

‘I should’ve let daylight into that
Sasannaich’s
innards first time,’ she said, raising her pitchfork. ‘He’s overdue it now. I’ll fight.’

The lands of Moy delivered a warrior force of almost three hundred, with half as many women and children in support. Anne’s bag of coin was lighter by the shillings paid to the families who stayed behind. Now they would head for Dunmaglas, to add the MacGillivrays, before criss-crossing the countryside to collect those who would fight from the other Chattan tribes. Anne halted Pibroch on the ridge that bounded Drumossie moor as her troops marched past, a great long line of men, women and children,
carrying only a little food, weapons and extra clothing. Far below, Moy Hall was lit by the setting sun, shining gold as the waters of the loch beside it turned brilliant orange.

MacGillivray rode up beside her.

‘He’ll join us,’ he said, ‘when he sees what his people want.’

‘While he disregards me?’ It was inconceivable that a husband would act on such a matter without consulting his wife. Yet Aeneas had done so. ‘Come,’ she said, turning Pibroch. ‘We want to make Dunmaglas before it’s pitch dark.’ She rode off towards the front of her forces to lead the way. As the swollen, vermilion sun tipped the horizon, the sky above the moor turned blood-red.

At Moy Hall, Aeneas was packed up, ready to leave. Will, the stableboy, held his horse ready at the front door. The Dowager saw him to it.

‘Must you go now? Anne might leave the troops with Alexander at Dunmaglas. She could be back tomorrow. You should talk this out.’

‘I tried. She wouldn’t listen.’ He put his foot in the stirrup and pulled himself up into the saddle. ‘Louden will be back in the fort. He’ll have heard my clan is marching. If I don’t show face tonight, he’ll think my word is broken before it’s kept.’ He took the reins, thanked Will and was about to ride off.

‘You won’t be among friends, Aeneas,’ his aunt said. ‘Be careful of your anger.’

‘I will,’ he said. Enmity was all he expected of an enemy. From a wife, he had expected support. He slapped the reins and rode off, skirting the loch, taking the shortest route across Moy to Inverness and Fort George. As he rode, an empty space rode beside him. MacGillivray was like a second self, always there when adventure called, closer than a brother. Yet he had not struggled with divided loyalty. Anne only had to ask, and he was at her side. Aeneas couldn’t have said which betrayal cut deepest, Anne’s or MacGillivray’s. He would not contemplate the one that might yet come. They would be together for two weeks, maybe more, gathering volunteers, taking them to Glenfinnan.

Once she had delivered them, Anne’s honour would be satisfied. Married women marched only with their husbands in Highland armies. Lacking hers, she would not stay. She would pass command to MacGillivray and return to Moy. Two weeks. In two weeks, he would settle this with her. By the time he clattered into the cobbled yard of the fort, his control was restored. He would need his wits about him here.

Lord Louden did not trouble to hide his relief. The M
^c
Intosh company was hostage to their chief’s return. He had not relished ordering out a firing squad if Aeneas failed to show.

‘Good to know you’re with us, M
^c
Intosh,’ he said. ‘Though I suspect General Cope thought your commission secured your tribe too.’

‘I’ve delivered what I promised,’ Aeneas said.

‘More than you think,’ Louden agreed. ‘MacDonald of Skye and MacLeod have followed your lead. We have companies from both.’ Tactfully, he didn’t add that, like Aeneas, other chiefs who declared for the government had clansmen and kinfolk who did not follow suit. ‘Your orders.’ He handed Aeneas the papers. ‘Your billet is in the south block officers’ quarters. Your men are drilling in the square.

‘A punishment?’ It was late, near dark.

‘I thought them better occupied.’ He opened the door. ‘You can relieve them now, Captain.’