White Rose Rebel (19 page)

‘Good,’ Aeneas said. Then he drew his fist back again. ‘And this is for Seonag, his mother.’ He hit the man square, full force, on the chin.

Ray stayed down this time, the world reeling too much for him to rise. Louden checked him over. He would live. He had the guard take him to the infirmary, then he turned to Aeneas.

‘Would you like him reassigned to another company?’

‘No.’ Aeneas shook his head. Enemies were best kept close. ‘I think we’ll understand each other now.’

City life began when the post-rider arrived at daybreak. Slops thrown out at the ten o’clock drum the night before had been cleared by the scaffies while folk slept. Doctors and lawyers made their way through cleaner streets than they’d gone home in, to the underground taverns to breakfast and see their clients. Traders buttoned back the shutters on the shops. Pigs that slept inside were ushered out to forage in the gutters. Edinburgh was becoming used to Highlanders. The government’s baggage train had been captured during the battle by a detail of Camerons, enriching Jacobite funds by £40,000. The troops had been paid. Business was brisk.

Anne was also dispensing some of those funds. For weeks she had spent the days in a small room at the Tolbooth, dealing with the captured prisoners. The euphoria had faded as the consequences of victory trailed before her. On the rough wooden table, she had a pile of papers, an inkwell and quill and a small wooden chest of coin. One by one, the defeated were brought in. Most were without injury, some were still bandaged.

She gave each one the same choice. They could join up for the Prince or sign a parole bond binding them never to raise arms against the Jacobites again, on pain of death. Many of the Scots among them chose to join the rebels. Those paroled were provided with enough meal money for their journey home. Occasionally, one would resist signing, usually an English redcoat who feared censure from the army if he did. They’d be put in a sleep cell then, for a few days, and eventually changed their minds.

Robert Nairn, the paymaster, sat with her, noting names, details, choice made and money paid. He was a fine-boned, gentle man, about twenty, with a preference for men in his bed, and a favourite of the Prince. Habitually, he winced at every evidence of wounding but, as he’d got to know her, would whisper risqué comments in Anne’s ear
about the charms of those he found attractive. A lover rather than a warrior, he seldom wore a weapon. Anne wondered what, apart from the prevalence of male flesh, brought him to war.

They were reaching the end of a long task, fifteen hundred men bar those still in hospital. In other rooms, Margaret and Greta carried out the same work. MacGillivray put his head around the door.

‘Two more,’ he said, ‘then we’re done.’

Anne leant back and stretched the stiffness from her spine.

‘Not a one today worth having the trousers off,’ Robert said.

‘Sguir dheth!’
Anne tapped her forefinger on the table. ‘Mind on the job.’

‘Oh, it is, it is,’ he smiled.

She laughed. A Black Watch soldier was ushered in.

‘Shameless!’ Anne cried.

‘Not me,’ Robert protested.

‘No, not you,’ Anne said. ‘Him.’ She knew the lad from Moy, when she inspected the volunteers with Aeneas before they left to join the Watch.

The young soldier’s face broke into a beatific grin.

‘Lady Anne!’ He was surprised, delighted. ‘I knew we’d won. Well, blow me.’

‘Given half a chance,’ Robert whispered.

Anne dunted him in the ribs.

‘Behave yourself,’ she said, ‘at least till we’re finished.’ She explained the true situation to Shameless, and his options: fight for the Prince or take parole.

‘Don’t mind who I fight for,’ he said, ‘if Howling Robbie can come.’ The pair went everywhere together, had done since they could walk.

‘Robbie,’ Anne asked, ‘is he next?’

‘In the hospital yet,’ Shameless said. ‘He has an arm off. Left one. No, right. One or the other, it is.’

‘Then he won’t be able to fight,’ Anne told him, gently.

‘Always said he’d take me on one day –’ he looked over at Robert Nairn ‘– arm behind his back.’

She had him sign a parole bond instead, two copies, one for him to prove he could not rejoin his unit. Shameless, of M
^c
Intosh, he wrote. Laws made by the old parliament insisted all the young had some schooling. The Clan Chattan chiefs supported it. Aeneas ensured that continued. Aeneas, Aeneas, Aeneas. She pulled over a second bond.

‘We’ll do one for Howling Robbie,’ she said. ‘Then you can take him home.’

‘Robbie must put his own name or mark,’ Robert corrected. ‘But as we’ve just one more to do, if Shameless will wait outside –’ he smiled at the soldier ‘– I’ll go with him to the hospital and complete it there.’

With that agreed Anne gave Shameless his parole copy, handed over enough coin for the week’s walk and called for the next, the last. One of the awkward squad, as he was bound to be, the government foot-soldier, like most of the English, had no schooling, so could neither read nor write and was certain it was his own death warrant they wanted him to sign. Robert Nairn rephrased Anne’s words, explaining patiently. From St Giles Cathedral, they heard the gill bell ring, calling the city’s citizens to their meridian drink in the taverns. The man was too afraid to lift the quill. Anne explained again. Robert grew fretful. Finally, he reached over and drew Anne’s sword from its sheath.

‘Sign it now,’ he snapped. ‘Or I’ll have your head off!’

Anne looked at him in amazement. The soldier grabbed the pen, scratched out his mark on both bonds, then screwed up his face in case the blow would still fall. With an apologetic shrug, Robert returned Anne’s sword, lifted one paper, packed it into his case with the others and left. Anne put some coins in front of the soldier and shook his wrist to make him open his eyes again.

‘Take the money,’ she said, ‘and go.’ The job was done. She blotted the ink from the quill, flipped the lid over the inkwell. Howling Robbie with an arm off. Why had Aeneas not brought them out for the Prince? She fastened shut the coin-box and took it out to MacGillivray. He would return it to their treasury while she attended the war council the Prince had called for midday. They
walked down the Tolbooth steps together. At the foot, old MacBean sat, reading a letter from his wife.

‘Is she managing without you?’ Anne enquired.

‘Managing to chide me still,’ MacBean replied. ‘I’m to be sure and rub my chest with goose grease for the cold and to heat my whisky with a spot of sugar in it of a night, and –’ he checked the lines ‘– not to be chasing after young women.’ His old eyes twinkled. ‘At what age are women not young?’ he asked. ‘I could chase after those.’

‘When they’re older than your wife?’ Anne suggested.

‘So, if they’re nearly seventy, I have my pick,’ MacBean chuckled, getting to his feet. Only five years older than his wife, he was spry enough, despite her obvious concern for his health, his pleasure in the letter plain. He tucked it carefully in his sporran and headed off for the nearest tavern.

‘There is only one woman MacBean wants.’ MacGillivray looked at her. They both ignored the uncomfortable distance they kept between them now. ‘He’s been with her for forty years.’ It was a long time in a world where death ensured few marriages lasted more than ten, a long time with one spouse when most people married several times.

A shiver ran down Anne’s spine. She could still see Aeneas, on that dreadful field, the look on his face. No love or understanding there, nothing she recognized. Was it anger, or despair? Every day she hoped he would arrive. Every day she was disappointed. Being wrong must be hard for him, climbing down harder still. Perhaps she should write.

‘MacBean will be home soon,’ she answered MacGillivray. ‘We all will.’ The victory had won over many doubters. New support arrived daily. They had enough troops now to secure Scotland. Cluny’s six hundred Macphersons, recently arrived, swelled the Clan Chattan contingent. They could stay in the south. She would take her people home, rid Inverness of its weakened garrison, bring her husband round.

They walked on up the Canongate. No one was about, the shops
shuttered, the traders in the taverns. Ahead of them, at one of the close mouths, there were raised voices. A struggle ensued. One of the town militia pointed a musket at Robert Nairn. Another had Shameless by the scruff, dragging him to the whipping posts beside the Mercat Cross. A minister of the dour Edinburgh kirk sounded off. Anne and MacGillivray ran the last few steps.

‘Stop!’ Anne cried. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Godless, they were involved in godless pursuits!’ The minister rounded on her. Seeing he spoke to Jacobites, he poked a finger shaking with rage at Robert. ‘Your man is yer ain concern. Take him tae yer Prince.’ He spat that out, obviously a Whig but, even in extremis, capable of careful politics. ‘But that,’ he pointed at Shameless, now being bound, yelling and kicking, between the posts. ‘That yin, we shall deal wi.’

‘Anne,’ Robert appealed, ‘we were only kissing.’

‘Fifty lashes!’ Spittle frothed at the dour minister’s mouth. ‘And if he’s conscious, fifty mair!’

Anne drew her sword, pinned the point at the man’s throat. MacGillivray slammed the coin-box against the musketeer’s head and, as the militiaman went down, drew his own blade. Robert took up the fallen musket.

‘Anne, will you next time notice the gun?’ MacGillivray said.

‘I knew you’d see to it,’ she said.

The militiaman tying Shameless saw the tables turned and put his hands up.

‘I dinnae mind what they were doin,’ he said.

‘Why do you?’ Anne prodded the minister. ‘Did either of them do you harm?’

‘They’re an offence tae ma sicht,’ the man spat out.

‘Then you should have averted your eyes,’ Anne said. ‘Their pleasure is not your business. It was not you they kissed.’

MacGillivray cut Shameless free.

‘Ye’ll aw burn in hellfire,’ the minister raged. ‘Before God, sin will be punished!’

‘Before God is where you’ll be,’ Anne warned, ‘if you dinnae
haud your wheesht.’ She was pleased with the way that sounded. A few weeks more in the city and she’d have mastered the Lowland tongue.

The minister kept quiet. Anne’s sword had nicked his throat as she spoke.

‘Go back to your church,’ she said.

He scurried off, possibly to find more militia. Like most inhabitants, they’d be in taverns drinking till the midday hour past. Wanting the situation settled before it escalated, Anne ordered the militiaman to see to his stunned comrade, and asked MacGillivray to take Shameless to Howling Robbie in the hospital, then get them both out of town.

‘And you,’ she said to Robert, ‘had best come with me.’

He collected his own case and the coin-box, trotting after her up the street.

‘I’m glad you came by, Anne,’ he said. ‘
Tapadh leat.
Thanks for that.’

‘Kissing,’ she fumed. ‘You just met. What were you thinking of ?’

‘You can’t guess?’

‘Robert,’ she suggested, ‘while we’re down here, you had better wear a sword.’

In the city chambers, runes were cast on to a map spread across a table. O’sullivan studied them. The Prince thumped the table, pleased.

‘Oui!’
He looked round for his commander-in-chief. ‘You see, Lord George? Fortune favours us.’

Margaret Johnstone exchanged a glance with her husband, uncertain of this predictive campaign method. Anne and Robert hurried in and stood beside her.

‘Now that we are all here…’ the Prince said, pointedly. ‘We have heard my cousin, the Duke of Cumberland, has set a price of £30,000 for my capture.’ He paused, smiling. ‘I have reciprocated, with an identical sum for my cousin’s arrest.’

Laughter erupted from the assembled commanders. When it
ended, the Prince introduced the new arrivals beside him, the Countess of Erroll, who, as High Constable of Scotland, was a powerful ally, Lady Nithsdale, her sisters, Lords Lovat and Balmerino.

Jolted, Anne stared at Lovat. He was loathed by her mother’s family, the Murrays. Before Anne was born, he’d tried to steal the Lovat title by forcibly marrying the Dowager, Amelia Murray, after failing to find and force her daughter. Afterwards, he fled to France to escape the Scottish court’s sentence of death. In the last rising, he had fought for England. As a reward, King George pardoned the rape and granted the title. What was he doing here? The Prince should jail him and return the title to its owner. She barely followed what was being said.

‘Lady Nairne and Lady Lude have also sent troops.
Mes amis
–’ the Prince paused for effect ‘– we have won Scotland.’ Those around the table cheered. The Prince waited, smiling, for silence. ‘We are now ready,’ he announced, ‘to invade England.’

‘England?’ Lord George had not expected this. ‘We should secure the border.’

‘And the coastline?’ O’sullivan said. ‘The Royal Navy doesn’t travel overland.’

‘Highlanders do,’ Lochiel pointed out. ‘And we have no designs on England.’ He turned to the Prince. ‘You’re tilting at the moon, laddie. Our men won’t cross the border.’

‘Except to steal cattle,’ Lord Kilmarnock snorted.

Mutterings rose around the council. Anne dragged her attention away from the despised Lovat back to what was happening. The Prince waved the dissenters down.

‘Gentlemen,’ he said grandly, ‘I have come to restore my father to his three kingdoms.’

‘Then the Irish and the English must win theirs for you,’ Lord George replied.

O’sullivan pointed out that his Irish mercenary Wild Geese, recently sent by King Louis, would fight with them. The Prince assured them England’s Jacobites would flock to his standard, given the opportunity. He held up a sheath of papers, their written promises.

‘Their politics are their business,’ Margaret said.

The Prince smiled, disarmingly, with not the slightest hint of annoyance.

‘To aid our king,’ he said, ‘is that not the business of us all?’

Everyone agreed it was. There were shouts of affirmation. Sensing the detractors were wavering, O’sullivan picked up a letter, bearing seals.