Dragonfly In Amber

The Flames of Rebellion

36 PRESTONPANS

Scotland, September 1745

Four days’ march found us on the crest of a hill near Calder. A sizable moor stretched out at the foot of the hill, but we set up camp within the shelter of the trees above. There were two small streams cutting through the moss-covered rock of the hillside, and the crisp weather of early fall made it seem much more like picnicking than a march to war.

But it was the seventeenth of September, and if my sketchy knowledge of Jacobite history was correct, war it would be, in a matter of days.

“Tell it to me again, Sassenach,” Jamie had said, for the dozenth time, as we made our way along the winding trails and dirt roads. I rode Donas, while Jamie walked alongside, but now slid down to walk beside him, to make conversation easier. While Donas and I had reached an understanding of sorts, he was the kind of horse that demanded your full concentration to ride; he was all too fond of scraping an unwary rider off by walking under low branches, for example.

“I told you before, I don’t know that much,” I said. “There was very little written about it in the history books, and I didn’t pay a great deal of attention at the time. All I can tell you is that the battle was fought – er, will be fought – near the town of Preston, and so it’s called the Battle of Prestonpans, though the Scots called – call – it the Battle of Gladsmuir, because of an old prophecy that the returning king will be victorious at Gladsmuir. Heaven knows where the real Gladsmuir is, if there is one.”

“Aye. And?”

I furrowed my brow, trying to recall every last scrap of information. I could conjure a mental picture of the small, tattered brown copy of A Child’s History of England, read by the flickering light of a kerosene lantern in a mud hut somewhere in Persia. Mentally flicking the pages, I could just recall the two-page section that was all the author had seen fit to devote to the second Jacobite Rising, known to historians as “the ’45.” And within that two-page section, the single paragraph dealing with the battle we were about to fight.

“The Scots win,” I said helpfully.

“Well, that’s the important point,” he agreed, a bit sarcastically, “but it would be a bit of help to know a little more.”

“If you wanted prophecy, you should have gotten a seer,” I snapped, then relented. “I’m sorry. It’s only that I don’t know much, and it’s very frustrating.”

“Aye, it is.” He reached down and took my hand, squeezing it as he smiled at me. “Dinna fash yourself, Sassenach. Ye canna say more than ye know, but tell me it all, just once more.”

“All right.” I squeezed back, and we walked on, hand in hand. “It was a remarkable victory,” I began, reading from my mental page, “because the Jacobites were so greatly outnumbered. They surprised General Cope’s army at dawn – they charged out of the rising sun, I remember that – and it was a rout. There were hundreds of casualties on the English side, and only a few from the Jacobite side – thirty men, that was it. Only thirty men killed.”

Jamie glanced behind us, at the straggling tail of the Lallybroch men, strung out as they walked along the road, chatting and singing in small groups. Thirty men was what we had brought from Lallybroch. It didn’t seem that small a number, looking at them. But I had seen the battlefields of Alsace-Lorraine, and the acres of meadowland converted to muddy boneyards by the burial of the thousands slain.

“Taken all in all,” I said, feeling faintly apologetic, “I’m afraid it was really rather… unimportant, historically speaking.”

Jamie blew out his breath through pursed lips, and looked down at me rather bleakly.

“Unimportant. Aye, well.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Not your fault, Sassenach.”

But I couldn’t help feeling that it was, somehow.

The men sat around the fire after their supper, lazily enjoying the feeling of full stomachs, exchanging stories and scratching. The scratching was endemic; close quarters and lack of hygiene made body lice so common as to excite no remark when one man detached a representative specimen from a fold of his plaid and tossed it into the fire. The louse flamed for an instant, one among the sparks of the fire, and then was gone.

The young man they called Kincaid – his name was Alexander, but there were so many Alexanders that most of them ended up being called by nicknames or middle names – seemed particularly afflicted with the scourge this evening. He dug viciously under one arm, into his curly brown hair, then – with a quick glance to see whether I was looking in his direction – at his crotch.

“Got ’em bad, have ye, lad?” Ross the smith observed sympathetically.

“Aye,” he answered, “the wee buggers are eatin’ me alive.”

“Bloody hell to get out of your cock hairs,” Wallace Fraser observed, scratching himself in sympathy. “Gives me the yeuk to watch ye, laddie.”

“D’ye ken the best way to rid yourself o’ the wee beasties?” Sorley McClure asked helpfully, and at Kincaid’s negative shake of the head, leaned forward and carefully pulled a flaming stick from the fire.

“Lift your kilt a moment, laddie, and I’ll smoke ’em out for ye,” he offered, to catcalls and jeers of laughter from the men.

“Bloody farmer,” Murtagh grumbled. “And what would ye know about it?”

“You know a better way?” Wallace raised thick brows skeptically, wrinkling the tanned skin of his balding forehead.

“O’ course.” He drew his dirk with a flourish. “The laddie’s a soldier now; let him do it like a soldier does.”

Kincaid’s open face was guileless and eager. “How’s that?”

“Weel, verra simple. Ye take your dirk, lift your plaidie, and shave off half the hairs on your crutch.” He raised the dirk warningly. “Only half, mind.”

“Half? Aye, well…” Kincaid looked doubtful, but was paying close attention. I could see the grins of anticipation broadening on the faces of the men around the fire, but no one was laughing yet.

“Then…” Murtagh gestured at Sorley and his stick. “Then, laddie, ye set the other half on fire, and when the beasties rush out, ye spear them wi’ your dirk.”

Kincaid blushed hotly enough to be seen even by firelight as the circle of men erupted in hoots and roars. There was a good deal of rude shoving as a couple of the men pretended to try the fire cure on each other, brandishing flaming billets of wood. Just as it seemed that the horseplay was getting out of hand, and likely to lead to blows in earnest, Jamie returned from hobbling the animals. He stepped into the circle, and tossed a stone bottle from under one arm to Kincaid. Another went to Murtagh, and the shoving died down.

“Ye’re fools, the lot o’ ye,” he declared. “The second best way to rid yourself of lice is to pour whisky on them and get them drunk. When they’ve fallen down snoring, then ye stand up and they’ll drop straight off.”

“Second best, eh?” said Ross. “And what’s the best way, sir, and I might ask?”

Jamie smiled indulgently round the circle, like a parent amused by the antics of his children.

“Why, let your wife pick them off ye, one by one.” He cocked an elbow and bowed to me, one eyebrow raised. “If you’d oblige me, my lady?”

While put forward as a joke, individual removal was in fact the only effective method of ridding oneself of lice. I fine-combed my own hair – all of it – morning and evening, washed it with yarrow whenever we paused near water deep enough to bathe in, and had so far avoided any serious infestations. Aware that I would remain louseless only so long as Jamie did, I administered the same treatment to him, whenever I could get him to sit still long enough.

“Baboons do this all the time,” I remarked, delicately disentangling a foxtail from his thick red mane. “But I believe they eat the fruits of their labors.”

“Dinna let me prevent ye, Sassenach, and ye feel so inclined,” he responded. He hunched his shoulders slightly in pleasure as the comb slid through the thick, glossy strands. The firelight filled my hands with a cascade of sparks and golden streaks of fire. “Mm. Ye wouldna think it felt so nice to have someone comb your hair for ye.”

“Wait ’til I get to the rest of it,” I said, tweaking him familiarly and making him giggle. “Tempted though I am to try Murtagh’s suggestion instead.”

“Touch my cock hairs wi’ a torch, and you’ll get the same treatment,” he threatened. “What was it Louise de La Tour says bald lassies are?”

“Erotic.” I leaned forward and nipped the upper flange of one ear between my teeth.

“Mmmphm.”

“Well, tastes differ,” I said. “Chacun à son gout, and all that.”

“A bloody French sentiment, and I ever heard one.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

A loud, rolling growl interrupted my labors. I laid down the comb and peered ostentatiously into the tree-filled shadows.

“Either,” I said, “there are bears in this wood, or… why haven’t you eaten?”

“I was busy wi’ the beasts,” he answered. “One of the ponies has a cracked hoof and I had to bind it with a poultice. Not that I’ve so much appetite, what wi’ all this talk of eating lice.”

“What sort of poultice do you use on a horse’s hoof?” I asked, ignoring this remark.

“Different things; fresh dung will do in a pinch. I used chewed vetch leaves mixed wi’ honey this time.”

The saddlebags had been dumped by our private fire, near the edge of the small clearing where the men had erected my tent. While I would have been willing to sleep under the stars, as they did, I admitted to a certain thankfulness for the small privacy afforded me by the sheet of canvas. And, as Murtagh had pointed out with his customary bluntness, when I thanked him for his assistance in erecting the shelter, the arrangement was not solely for my benefit.

“And if he takes his ease between your thighs of a night, there’s none will grudge it to him,” the little clansman had said, with a jerk of the head toward Jamie, deep in conversation with several of the other men. “But there’s nay need to make the lads think ower-much o’ things they canna have, now is there?”

“Quite,” I said, with an edge to my voice. “Very thoughtful of you.”

One of his rare smiles curled the corner of the thin-lipped mouth.

“Och, quite,” he said.

A quick rummage through the saddlebags turned up a heel of cheese and several apples. I gave these to Jamie, who examined them dubiously.

“No bread?” he asked.

“There may be some in the other bag. Eat those first, though; they’re good for you.” He shared the Highlanders’ innate suspicion of fresh fruit and vegetables, though his great appetite made him willing to eat almost anything in extremity.

“Mm,” he said, taking a bite of one apple. “If ye say so, Sassenach.”

“I do say so. Look.” I pulled my lips back, baring my teeth. “How many women of my age do you know who still have all their teeth?”

A grin bared his own excellent teeth.

“Well, I’ll admit you’re verra well preserved, Sassenach, for such an auld crone.”

“Well nourished, is what I am,” I retorted. “Half the people on your estate are suffering from mild scurvy, and from what I’ve seen on the road, it’s even worse elsewhere. It’s vitamin C that prevents scurvy, and apples are full of it.”

He took the apple away from his mouth and frowned at it suspiciously.

“They are?”

“Yes, they are,” I said firmly. “So are most other kinds of plants – oranges and lemons are best, but of course you can’t get those here – but onions, cabbage, apples… eat something like that every day, and you won’t get scurvy. Even green herbs and meadow grass have vitamin C.”

“Mmphm. And that’s why deer dinna lose their teeth as they get old?”

“I daresay.”

He turned the apple to and fro, examining it critically, then shrugged.

“Aye, well,” he said, and took another bite.

I had just turned to fetch the bread when a faint crackling sound drew my attention. I caught sight from the corner of my eye of shadowy movement in the darkness and the firelight flashed from something near Jamie’s head. I whirled toward him, shouting, just in time to see him topple backward off the log and disappear into the void of the night.

There was no moon, and the only clue to what was happening was a tremendous scuffling sound in the dry alder leaves, and the noise of men locked in effortful but silent conflict, with grunts, gasps, and the occasional muffled curse. There was a short, sharp cry, and then complete quiet. It lasted, I suppose, only a few seconds, though it seemed to go on forever.

I was still standing by the fire, frozen in my original position, when Jamie reemerged from the Stygian dark of the forest, a captive before him, one arm twisted behind its back. Loosing his grip, he whirled the dark figure around and gave it an abrupt shove that sent it crashing backward into a tree. The man hit the trunk hard, loosing a shower of leaves and acorns, and slid slowly down to lie dazed in the leaf-meal.

Attracted by the noise, Murtagh, Ross, and a couple of the other Fraser men materialized by the fire. Hauling the intruder to his feet, they pulled him roughly into the circle of firelight. Murtagh grabbed the captive by the hair and jerked his head backward, bringing his face into view.

It was a small, fine-boned face, with big, long-lashed eyes that blinked dazedly at the crowding faces.

“But he’s only a boy!” I exclaimed. “He can’t be more than fifteen!”

“Sixteen!” said the boy. He shook his head, senses returning. “Not that that makes any difference,” he added haughtily, in an English accent. Hampshire, I thought. He was a long way from home.

“It doesn’t,” Jamie grimly agreed. “Sixteen or sixty, he’s just made a verra creditable attempt at cutting my throat.” I noticed then the reddened handkerchief pressed against the side of his neck.

“I shan’t tell you anything,” the boy said. His eyes were dark pools in the pale face, though the firelight shone on the gleam of fair hair. He was clutching one arm tightly in front of him; I thought perhaps it was injured. The boy was clearly making a major effort to stand upright among the men, lips compressed against any wayward expression of fear or pain.

“Some things you don’t need to tell me,” said Jamie, looking the lad over carefully. “One, you’re an Englishman, so likely you’ve come with troops nearby. And two, you’re alone.”

The boy seemed startled. “How do you know that?”

Jamie raised his eyebrows. “I suppose that ye’d not have attacked me unless you thought that the lady and I were alone. If you were with someone else who also thought that, they would presumably have come to your assistance just now – is your arm broken, by the way? I thought I felt something snap. If you were with someone else who knew we were not alone, they would ha’ stopped ye from trying anything so foolish.” Despite this diagnosis, I noticed three of the men fade discreetly into the forest in response to a signal from Jamie, presumably to check for other intruders.

The boy’s expression hardened at hearing his act described as foolish. Jamie dabbed at his neck, then inspected the handkerchief critically.

“If you’re tryin’ to kill someone from behind, laddie, pick a man who’s not sitting in a pile of dry leaves,” he advised. “And if you’re using a knife on someone larger than you, pick a surer spot; throat-cutting’s chancy unless your victim will sit still for ye.”

“Thank you for the valuable advice,” the boy sneered. He was doing a fair job at maintaining his bravado, though his eyes flicked nervously from one threatening, whiskered face to another. None of the Highlanders would have won any beauty prizes in broad daylight; by night, they weren’t the sort of thing you wanted to meet in a dark place.

Jamie answered courteously, “You’re quite welcome. It’s unfortunate that ye won’t get the chance to apply it in future. Why did you attack me, since I think to ask?”

Men, attracted by the noise, had begun filtering in from the surrounding campsites, sliding wraithlike out of the woods. The boy’s glance flickered around the growing circle of men, resting at length on me. He hesitated for a moment, but answered, “I was hoping to release the lady from your custody.”

A small stir of suppressed amusement ran around the circle, only to be quelled by a brief gesture from Jamie. “I see,” he said noncommittally. “You heard us talking and determined that the lady is English and well-born. Whereas I-”

“Whereas you, sir, are a conscienceless outlaw, with a reputation for thievery and violence! Your face and description are on broadsheets throughout Hampshire and Sussex! I recognized you at once; you’re a rebel and an unprincipled voluptuary!” the boy burst out hotly, face stained a deeper red even than the firelight.

I bit my lip and looked down at my shoes, so as not to meet Jamie’s eye.

“Aye, well. Just as ye say,” Jamie agreed cordially. “That being the case, perhaps you can advance some reason why I shouldna kill ye immediately?” Drawing the dirk smoothly from its sheath, he twisted it delicately, making the fire jump from the blade.

The blood had faded from the young man’s face, leaving him ghostly in the shadows, but he drew himself upright at this, pulling against the captors on either side. “I expected that. I am quite prepared to die,” he said, stiffening his shoulders.

Jamie nodded thoughtfully, then, stooping, laid the blade of his dirk in the fire. A plume of smoke rose around the blackening metal, smelling strongly of the forge. We all watched in silent fascination as the flame, spectral blue where it touched the blade, seemed to bring the deadly iron to life in a flush of deep red heat.

Wrapping his hand in the bloodstained cloth, Jamie cautiously pulled the dirk from the fire. He advanced slowly toward the boy, letting the blade fall, as though of its own volition, until it touched the lad’s jerkin. There was a strong smell of singed cloth from the handkerchief wrapped around the haft of the knife, which grew stronger as a narrow burnt line traced its way up the front of the jerkin in the dagger’s path. The point, darkening as it cooled, stopped just short of the upwardly straining chin. I could see thin lines of sweat shining in the stretched hollows of the slender neck.

“Aye, well, I’m afraid that I’m no prepared to kill ye – just yet.” Jamie’s voice was soft, filled with a quiet menace all the more frightening for its control.

“Who d’ye march with?” The question snapped like a whip, making its hearers flinch. The knife point hovered slightly nearer, smoking in the night wind.

“I’ll – I’ll not tell you!” The boy’s lips closed tight on the stammered answer, and a tremor ran down the delicate throat.

“Nor how far away your comrades lie? Nor their number? Nor their direction of march?” The questions were put lightly again, with a finicking touch of the blade along the edge of the boy’s jaw. His eyes showed white all around, like a panicked horse, but he shook his head violently, making the golden hair fly. Ross and Kincaid tightened their grip against the pull of the boy’s arms.

The darkened blade pressed suddenly flat along its length, hard under the angle of the jaw. There was a thin and breathy scream, and the stink of burning skin.

“Jamie!” I said, shocked beyond bearing. He did not turn to look at me, but kept his eyes fixed on his prisoner, who, released from the grip on his arms, had sunk to his knees in the drift of dead leaves, hand clutched to his neck.

“This is no concern of yours, Madam,” he said between his teeth. Reaching down, he grabbed the boy by the shirtfront and jerked him to his feet. Wavering, the knife blade rose between them, and poised itself just under the lad’s left eye. Jamie tilted his head in silent question, to receive a minimal but definite negative shake in return.

The boy’s voice was no more than a shaky whisper; he had to clear his throat to make himself heard. “N-no,” he said. “No. There is nothing you can do to me that will make me tell you anything.”

Jamie held him for a moment longer, eye to eye, then let go of the bunched fabric and stepped back. “No,” he said slowly, “I dinna suppose there is. Not to you. But what about the lady?”

I didn’t at first realize that he meant me, until he grabbed me by the wrist and yanked me to him, making me stumble slightly on the rough ground. I fell toward him, and he twisted my arm roughly behind my back.

“You may be indifferent to your own welfare, but ye might perhaps have some concern for the lady’s honor, since you were at such pains to rescue her.” Turning me toward himself, he twined his fingers in my hair, forced my head back and kissed me with a deliberate brutality that made me squirm involuntarily in protest.

Freeing my hair, he pulled me hard against him, facing the boy on the other side of the fire. The boy’s eyes were enormous, aghast with reflections of flame in the wide dark pupils.

“Let her go!” he demanded hoarsely. “What are you proposing to do with her?”

Jamie’s hands reached to the neck of my gown. With a sudden jerk, he tore the fabric of gown and shift, baring most of my bosom. Reacting instinctively, I kicked him in the shin. The boy made an inarticulate sound and jerked forward, but was stopped short once more by Ross and Kincaid.

“Since you ask,” said Jamie’s voice pleasantly behind me, “I am proposing to ravish this lady before your eyes. I shall then give her to my men, to do what they will with. Perhaps ye would like to have a turn before I kill you? A man should no die a virgin, do ye think?”

I was struggling in good earnest now, my arm held in an iron grip behind my back, my protests muffled by Jamie’s large, warm palm clapped over my mouth. I sank my teeth hard into the heel of his hand, tasting blood. He took his hand sharply away with a smothered exclamation, but returned it almost immediately, forcing a wadded piece of cloth past my teeth. I made strangled sounds around the gag as Jamie’s hands darted to my shoulders, forcing the torn pieces of my gown farther apart. With a rending of linen and fustian, he bared me to the waist, pinning my arms at my sides. I saw Ross glance at me and quickly away, fixing his gaze with dogged intent on the prisoner, a slow flush staining his cheekbones. Kincaid, himself no more than nineteen, stared in shock, his mouth open as a flytrap.

“Stop it!” The boy’s voice was trembling, but with outrage now rather than fear. “You – you unspeakable poltroon! How dare you dishonor a lady, you Scottish jackal!” He stood for a moment, chest heaving with emotion, then made up his mind. He raised his jaw and thrust out his chin.

“Very well. I do not see that in honor I have any choice. Release the lady and I will tell you what you want to know.”

One of Jamie’s hands left my shoulder momentarily. I didn’t see his gesture, but Ross released the boy’s injured arm and went quickly to fetch my cloak, which had fallen unheeded to the ground during the excitement of the boy’s capture. Jamie pulled both my hands behind me, and, yanking off my belt, used it to bind them securely behind my back. Taking the cloak from Ross, he swirled it around my shoulders and fastened it carefully. Stepping back, he bowed ironically to me, then turned to face his captive.

“You have my word that the lady will be safe from my advances,” he said. The note in his voice could have been due to the strain of anger and frustrated lust; I recognized it as the agonized restraint of an overwhelming impulse to laugh, and could cheerfully have killed him.

Face like stone, the boy gave the required information, speaking in brief syllables.

His name was William Grey, second son of Viscount Melton. He accompanied a troop of two hundred men, traveling to Dunbar, intending to join there with General Cope’s army. His fellows were presently encamped some three miles to the west. He, William, out walking through the forest, had seen the light of our fire, and come to investigate. No, he had no companion with him. Yes, the troop carried heavy armament, sixteen carriage-mounted “galloper” cannon, and two sixteen-inch mortars. Most of the troop were armed with muskets, and there was one company of thirty horse.

The boy was beginning to wilt under the combined strain of the questioning and his injured arm, but refused an offer to be seated. Instead, he leaned against the tree, cradling his elbow in his left palm.

The questions went on for nearly an hour, covering the same ground over and over, pinpointing discrepancies, enlarging details, searching out the telltale omission, the point evaded. Satisfied at last, Jamie sighed deeply and turned from the boy, who slumped in the wavering shadows of the oak. He held out a hand without speaking; Murtagh, as usual divining his intent, handed him a pistol.

He turned back to the prisoner, busying himself in checking the priming and loading of the pistol. The twelve inches of heart-butted metal gleamed dark, the firelight picking out sparks of silver at trigger and priming pin. “Head or heart?” Jamie asked casually, raising his head at last.

“Eh?” The boy’s mouth hung open in blank incomprehension.

“I am going to shoot you,” Jamie explained patiently. “Spies are usually hanged, but in consideration of your gallantry, I am willing to give you a quick, clean death. Do ye prefer to take the ball in the head, or the heart?”

The boy straightened quickly, squaring his shoulders. “Oh, ah, yes, of course.” He licked his lips and swallowed. “I think… in the – in the heart. Thank you,” he added, as an obvious afterthought. He raised his chin, compressing lips that still held a suggestion of their soft, childish curve.

Nodding, Jamie cocked the pistol with a click that echoed in the silence under the oak trees.

“Wait!” said the prisoner. Jamie looked at him inquiringly, pistol leveled at the thin chest.

“What assurance have I that the lady will remain unmolested after I am – after I have gone?” the boy demanded, looking belligerently around the circle of men. His single working hand was clenched hard, but shook nonetheless. Ross made a sound which he skillfully converted into a sneeze.

Jamie lowered the pistol, and with an iron control, kept his face carefully composed in an expression of solemn gravity.

“Weel,” he said, the Scots accent growing broader under the strain, “ye ha’ my own word, of course, though I quite see that ye might have some hesitation in accepting the word of a…” – his lip twitched despite himself – “of a Scottish poltroon. Perhaps ye would accept the assurances of the lady herself?” He raised an eyebrow in my direction and Kincaid sprang at once to free me, fumbling awkwardly with the gag.

“Jamie!” I exclaimed furiously, mouth freed at last. “This is unconscionable! How could you do such a thing? You – you-”

“Poltroon,” he supplied helpfully. “Or jackal, if ye like that better. What d’ye say, Murtagh,” turning to his lieutenant, “am I a poltroon or a jackal?”

Murtagh’s seam of a mouth twisted sourly. “I’d say ye’re dogsmeat, if you untie yon lass wi’out a dirk in yer hand.”

Jamie turned apologetically to his prisoner. “I must apologize to my wife for forcing her to take part in this deception. I assure you that her participation was entirely unwilling.” He ruefully examined his bitten hand in the light from the fire.

“Your wife!” The boy stared wildly from me to Jamie.

“I’ll assure ye likewise that while the lady on occasion honors my bed with her presence, she has never done so under duress. And won’t now,” he added pointedly, “but let’s no untie her just yet, Kincaid.”

“James Fraser,” I hissed between clenched teeth. “If you touch that boy, you’ll certainly never share my bed again!”

Jamie raised one eyebrow. His canines gleamed briefly in the firelight. “Well, that’s a serious threat, to an unprincipled voluptuary such as myself, but I dinna suppose I can consider my own interests in such a situation. War’s war, after all.” The pistol, which had been allowed to fall, began to rise once more.

“Jamie!” I screamed.

He lowered the pistol again, and turned to me with an expression of exaggerated patience. “Yes?”

I took a deep breath, to keep my voice from shaking with rage. I could only guess what he was up to, and hoped I was doing the right thing. Right or not, when this was over… I choked off an intensely pleasing vision of Jamie writhing on the ground with my foot on his Adam’s apple, in order to concentrate on my present role.

“You haven’t any evidence whatever that he’s a spy,” I said. “He says he stumbled on you by accident. Who wouldn’t be curious if they saw a fire out in the woods?”

Jamie nodded, following the argument. “Aye, and what about attempted murder? Spy or no, he tried to kill me, and admits as much.” He tenderly fingered the raw scratch at the side of his throat.

“Well, of course he did,” I said hotly. “He says he knew you were an outlaw. There’s a bloody price on your head, for heaven’s sake!”

Jamie rubbed his chin dubiously, at last turning to the prisoner. “Well, it’s a point,” he said. “William Grey, your advocate makes a good case for ye. It’s no the policy either of His Highness Prince Charles or myself to execute persons unlawfully, enemy or no.” He summoned Kincaid with a wave of the hand.

“Kincaid, you and Ross take this man in the direction he says his camp lies. If the information he gave us proves to be true, tie him to a tree a mile from the camp in the line of march. His friends will find him there tomorrow. If what he told us is not true…” – he paused, cold eyes bent on the prisoner – “cut his throat.”

He looked the boy in the face and said, without a shadow of mockery, “I give you your life. I hope ye’ll use it well.”

Moving behind me, he cut the cloth binding my wrists. As I turned furiously, he motioned toward the boy, who had sat down suddenly on the ground beneath the oak. “Perhaps ye’d be good enough to tend the boy’s arm before he goes?” The scowl of pretended ferocity had left his face, leaving it blank as a wall. His eyelids were lowered, preventing me from meeting his gaze.

Without a word, I went to the boy and sank to my knees beside him. He seemed dazed, and didn’t protest my examination, or the subsequent manipulations, though the handling must have been painful.

The split bodice of my gown kept sliding off my shoulders, and I muttered beneath my breath as I irritably hitched up one side or the other for the dozenth time. The bones of the boy’s forearm were light and angular under the skin, hardly thicker than my own. I splinted the arm and slung it, using my own kerchief. “It’s a clean break,” I told him, keeping my voice impersonal. “Try to keep it still for two weeks, at least.” He nodded, not looking at me.

Jamie had been sitting quietly on a log watching my ministrations. My breath coming unevenly, I walked up to him and slapped him as hard as I could. The blow left a white patch on one cheek and made his eyes water, but he didn’t move or change expression.

Kincaid pulled the boy to his feet and propelled him to the edge of the clearing with a hand at his back. At the edge of the shadows he halted and turned back. Avoiding looking at me, he spoke only to Jamie.

“I owe you my life,” he said formally. “I should greatly prefer not to, but since you have forced the gift upon me, I must regard it as a debt of honor. I shall hope to discharge that debt in the future, and once it is discharged…” The boy’s voice shook slightly with suppressed hatred, losing all its assumed formality in the utter sincerity of his feelings. “…I’ll kill you!”

Jamie rose from the log to his full height. His face was calm, free of any taint of amusement. He inclined his head gravely to his departing prisoner. “In that case, sir, I must hope that we do not meet again.”

The boy straightened his shoulders and returned the bow stiffly. “A Grey does not forget an obligation, sir,” he said, and vanished into the darkness, Kincaid at his elbow.

There was a discreet interval of breathless waiting, as the leaf-shuffling sounds of feet moved off through the darkness. Then the laughter started, first with a soft, fizzing noise through the nostrils of one man, then a tentative chuckle from another. Never raucous, still it gathered volume, spiraling round the circle of men.

Jamie took one step into the circle, face turned toward his men. The laughter stopped abruptly. Glancing down at me, he said briefly, “Go to the tent.”

Warned by my expression, he gripped my wrist before I could raise my hand.

“If you’re going to slap me again, at least let me turn the other cheek,” he said dryly. “Besides, I think I can save ye the trouble. But I’d advise you to go to the tent, just the same.”

Dropping my hand, he strode out to the edge of the fire, and with one peremptory jerk of the head, gathered the scattered men into a reluctant, half-wary clump before him. Their faces were big-eyed, orbits scooped with darkness by the shadows.

I didn’t understand everything he said, as he spoke in an odd mixture of Gaelic and English, but I gathered sufficient sense to realize that he was inquiring, in a soft, level tone that seemed to turn his listeners to stone, as to the identity of the sentinels on duty for the evening.

There was a furtive glancing to and fro, and uneasy movement among the men, who seemed to clump more strongly together in the face of danger. But then the closed ranks parted, and two men stepped out, glanced up – once – then hastily down, and stood shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the ground, outside the protection of their fellows.

It was the McClure brothers, George and Sorley. Close in age, somewhere in their thirties, they stood hang-dog near each other, fingers of the work-toughened hands twitching as though longing to link and clasp together, as some small protection before the coming storm.

There was a brief, wordless pause as Jamie looked over the two delinquent sentinels. Then followed five solid minutes of unpleasantness, all conducted in that same soft, level voice. There wasn’t a sound from the grouped men, and the McClures, both burly men, seemed to dwindle and shrink under the weight of it. I wiped my sweating palms on my skirt, glad that I didn’t understand it all, and beginning to regret not following Jamie’s order to return to the tent.

I regretted it still more in the next moment, when Jamie turned suddenly to Murtagh, who, expecting the command, was ready with a leather strip, some two feet long, knotted at one end to provide a rough grip.

“Strip and stand to me, the both of ye.” The McClures moved at once, thick fingers fumbling with shirt fastenings, as though eager to obey, relieved that the preliminaries were over and the reckoning arrived.

I thought perhaps I would be sick, though I gathered that the punishment was light enough, by the standards applied to such things. There was no sound in the clearing, save the slap of the lash and an occasional gasp or groan from the man being flogged.

At the last stroke, Jamie let the thong fall to his side. He was sweating heavily, and the grimed linen of his shirt was pasted to his back. He nodded to the McClures in dismissal, and wiped his wet face on his sleeve as one man bent painfully to retrieve the discarded shirts, his brother, shaky himself, bracing him on the other side.

The men in the clearing seemed to have ceased even breathing, during the punishment. Now there was a tremor through the group, as though a collective breath had been released in a sigh of relief.

Jamie eyed them, shaking his head slightly. The night wind was rising, stirring and lifting the hair on his crown.

“We canna afford carelessness, mo duinnen,” he said softly. “Not from anyone.” He took a deep breath and his mouth twisted wryly. “And that includes me. It was my unshielded fire drew the lad to us.” Fresh sweat had sprung out on his brow, and he wiped a hand roughly across his face, drying it on his kilt. He nodded toward Murtagh, standing grimly apart from the other men, and held the leather strap out toward him.

“If ye’ll oblige me, sir?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Murtagh’s gnarled hand reached out and took the strap. An expression that might have been amusement flickered in the little clansman’s bright black eyes.

“Wi’ pleasure… sir.”

Jamie turned his back to his men, and began to unfasten his shirt. His eye caught me, standing frozen between the tree trunks, and one eyebrow lifted in ironic question. Did I want to watch? I shook my head frantically, whirled, and blundered away through the trees, belatedly taking his advice.

In fact, I didn’t return to the tent. I couldn’t bear the thought of its stifling enclosure; my chest felt tight and I needed air.

I found it on the crest of a small rise, just beyond the tent. I stumbled to a stop in a small open space, flung myself full-length on the ground, and put both arms over my head. I didn’t want to hear the faintest echo of the drama’s final act, down behind me by the fire.

The rough grass beneath me was cold on bare skin, and I hunched to wrap the cloak around me. Cocooned and insulated, I lay quiet, listening to the pounding of my heart, waiting for the turmoil inside me to calm.

Sometime later, I heard men passing by in small groups of four or five, returning to their sleeping spots. Muffled by folds of cloth, I couldn’t distinguish their words, but they sounded subdued, perhaps a little awed. Some time passed before I realized that he was there. He didn’t speak or make a noise, but I suddenly knew that he was nearby. When I rolled over and sat up, I could see his bulk shadowed on a stone, head resting on forearms, folded across his knees.

Torn between the impulse to stroke his head, and the urge to cave it in with a rock, I did neither.

“Are you all right?” I asked, after a moment’s pause, voice neutral as I could make it.

“Aye, I’ll do.” He unfolded himself slowly, and stretched, moving gingerly, with a deep sigh.

“I’m sorry for your gown,” he said, a minute later. I realized that he could see my bare flesh shining dim-white in the darkness, and pulled the edges of my cloak sharply together.

“Oh, for the gown?” I said, more than a slight edge to my voice.

He sighed again. “Aye, and for the rest of it, too.” He paused, then said, “I thought perhaps ye might be willing to sacrifice your modesty to prevent my havin’ to damage the lad, but under the circumstances, I hadna time to ask your permission. If I was wrong, then I’ll ask your pardon, lady.”

“You mean you would have tortured him further?”

He was irritated, and didn’t trouble to hide it. “Torture, forbye! I didna hurt the lad.”

I drew the folds of my cloak more tightly around me. “Oh, you don’t consider breaking his arm and branding him with a hot knife as hurting him, then?”

“No, I don’t.” He scooted across the few feet of grass between us, and grasped me by the elbow, pulling me around to face him. “Listen to me. He broke his own silly arm, trying to force his way out of an unbreakable lock. He’s brave as any man I’ve got, but he’s no experience at hand-to-hand fighting.”

“And the knife?”

Jamie snorted. “Tcha! He’s a small sore spot under one ear, that won’t pain him much past dinner tomorrow. I expect it hurt a bit, but I meant to scare him, not wound him.”

“Oh.” I pulled away and turned back to the dark wood, looking for our tent. His voice followed me.

“I could have broken him, Sassenach. It would have been messy, though, and likely permanent. I’d rather not use such means if I dinna have to. Mind ye, Sassenach” – his voice reached me from the shadows, holding a note of warning – “sometime I may have to. I had to know where his fellows were, their arms and the rest of it. I couldna scare him into it; it was trick him or break him.”

“He said you couldn’t do anything that would make him talk.”

Jamie’s voice was weary. “Christ, Sassenach, of course I could. Ye can break anyone if you’re prepared to hurt them enough. I know that, if anyone does.”

“Yes,” I said quietly, “I suppose you do.”

Neither of us moved for a time, nor spoke. I could hear the murmurs of men bedding down for the night, the occasional stamp of boots on hard earth and the rustle of leaves heaped up as a barrier against the autumn chill. My eyes had adjusted sufficiently to the dark that I could now see the outline of our tent, some thirty feet away in the shelter of a big larch. I could see Jamie, too, his figure black against the lighter darkness of the night.

“All right,” I said at last. “All right. Given the choice between what you did, and what you might have done… yes, all right.”

“Thank you.” I couldn’t tell whether he was smiling or not, but it sounded like it.

“You were taking the hell of a chance with the rest of it,” I said. “If I hadn’t given you an excuse for not killing him, what would you have done?”

The large figure stirred and shrugged, and there was a faint chuckle in the shadows.

“I don’t know, Sassenach. I reckoned as how you’d think of something. If ye hadn’t – well, I suppose I would have had to shoot the lad. Couldna very well disappoint him by just lettin’ him go, could I?”

“You bloody Scottish bastard,” I said without heat.

He heaved a deep exasperated sigh. “Sassenach, I’ve been stabbed, bitten, slapped, and whipped since supper – which I didna get to finish. I dinna like to scare children and I dinna like to flog men, and I’ve had to do both. I’ve two hundred English camped three miles away, and no idea what to do about them. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I’m sore. If you’ve anything like womanly sympathy about ye, I could use a bit!”

He sounded so aggrieved that I laughed in spite of myself. I got up and walked toward him.

“I suppose you could, at that. Come here, and I’ll see if I can find a bit for you.” He had put his shirt back on loose over his shoulders, not troubling to do it up. I slid my hands under it and over the hot, tender skin of his back. “Didn’t cut the skin,” I said, feeling gently upward.

“A strap doesn’t; it just stings.”

I removed the shirt and sat him down to have his back sponged with cold water from the stream.

“Better?” I asked.

“Mmmm.” The muscles of his shoulders relaxed, but he flinched slightly as I touched a particularly tender spot.

I turned my attention to the scratch under his ear. “You wouldn’t really have shot him, would you?”

“What d’ye take me for, Sassenach?” he said, in mock outrage.

“A Scottish poltroon. Or at best, a conscienceless outlaw. Who knows what a fellow like that would do? Let alone an unprincipled voluptuary.”

He laughed with me, and his shoulder shook under my hand. “Turn your head. If you want womanly sympathy, you’ll have to keep still while I apply it.”

“Mmm.” There was a moment of silence. “No,” he said at last, “I wouldna have shot him. But I had to save his pride somehow, after making him feel ridiculous over you. He’s a brave lad; he deserved to feel he was worth killing.”

I shook my head. “I will never understand men,” I muttered, smoothing marigold ointment over the scratch.

He reached back for my hands and brought them together under his chin.

“You dinna need to understand me, Sassenach,” he said quietly. “So long as ye love me.” His head tilted forward and he gently kissed my clasped hands.

“And feed me,” he added, releasing them.

“Oh, womanly sympathy, love and food?” I said, laughing. “Don’t want a lot, do you?”

There were cold bannocks in the saddlebags, cheese, and a bit of cold bacon as well. The tensions and absurdities of the last two hours had been more draining than I realized, and I hungrily joined in the meal.

The sounds of the men surrounding us had now died down, and there was neither sound nor any flicker of an unguarded fire to indicate that we were not a thousand miles from any human soul. Only the wind rattled busily among the leaves, sending the odd twig bouncing down through the branches.

Jamie leaned back against a tree, face dim in the starlight, but body instinct with mischief.

“I gave your champion my word that I’d no molest ye wi’ my loathsome advances. I suppose that means unless ye invite me to share your bed, I shall have to go and sleep wi’ Murtagh or Kincaid. And Murtagh snores.”

“So do you,” I said.

I looked at him for a moment, then shrugged, letting half my ruined gown slide off my shoulder. “Well, you’ve made a good start at ravishing me.” I dropped the other shoulder, and the torn cloth fell free to my waist. “You may as well come and finish the job properly.”

The warmth of his arms was like heated silk, sliding over my cold skin.

“Aye, well,” he murmured into my hair, “war’s war, no?”

“I’m very bad at dates,” I said to the star-thick sky sometime later. “Has Miguel de Cervantes been born yet?”

Jamie was lying – perforce – on his stomach next to me, head and shoulders protruding from the tent’s shelter. One eye slowly opened, and swiveled toward the eastern horizon. Finding no trace of dawn, it traveled slowly back and rested on my face, with an expression of jaundiced resignation.

“You’ve a sudden urge to discuss Spanish novels?” he said, a little hoarsely.

“Not particularly,” I said. “I just wondered whether perhaps you were familiar with the term ‘quixotic.’ ”

He heaved himself onto his elbows, scrubbed at his scalp with both hands to wake himself fully, then turned toward me, blinking but alert.

“Cervantes was born almost two hundred years ago, Sassenach, and, me having had the benefit of a thorough education, aye, I’m familiar with the gentleman. Ye wouldna be implying anything personal by that last remark, would ye?”

“Does your back hurt?”

He hunched his shoulders experimentally. “Not much. A wee bit bruised, I expect.”

“Jamie, why, for God’s sake?” I burst out.

He rested his chin on his folded forearms, the sidelong turn of his head emphasizing the slant of his eyes. The one I could see narrowed still further with his smile.

“Well, Murtagh enjoyed it. He’s owed me a hiding since I was nine and put pieces of honeycomb in his boots while he had them off to cool his feet. He couldna catch me at the time, but I learned a good many interesting new words whilst he was chasing me barefoot. He-”

I put a stop to this by punching him as hard as I could on the point of the shoulder. Surprised, he let the arm collapse under him with a sharp “Oof!” and rolled onto his side, back toward me.

I brought my knees up behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist. His back blotted out the stars, wide and smoothly muscled, still gleaming faintly with the moisture of exertion. I kissed him between the shoulder blades, then drew back and blew gently, for the pleasure of feeling his skin shiver under my fingertips and the tiny fine hairs stand up in goose bumps down the furrow of his spine.

“Why?” I said again. I rested my face against his warm, damp back. Shadowed by the darkness, the scars were invisible, but I could feel them, faint tough lines hard under my cheek.

He was quiet for a moment, his ribs rising and falling under my arm with each deep, slow breath.

“Aye, well,” he said, then fell silent again, thinking.

“I dinna ken exactly, Sassenach,” he said finally. “Could be I thought I owed it to you. Or maybe to myself.”

I laid a light palm across the width of one shoulder blade, broad and flat, the edges of the bone clear-drawn beneath the skin.

“Not to me.”

“Aye? Is it the act of a gentleman to unclothe his wife in the presence of thirty men?” His tone was suddenly bitter, and my hands stilled, pressing against him. “Is it the act of a gallant man to use violence against a captive enemy, and a child to boot? To consider doing worse?”

“Would it have been better to spare me – or him – and lose half your men in two days’ time? You had to know. You couldn’t – you can’t afford to let notions of gentlemanly conduct sway you.”

“No,” he said softly, “I can’t. And so I must ride wi’ a man – with the son of my King – whom duty and honor call me to follow – and seek meanwhiles to pervert his cause that I am sworn to uphold. I am forsworn for the lives of those I love – I betray the name of honor that those I honor may survive.”

“Honor has killed one bloody hell of a lot of men,” I said to the dark groove of his bruised back. “Honor without sense is… foolishness. A gallant foolishness, but foolishness nonetheless.”

“Aye, it is. And it will change – you’ve told me. But if I shall be among the first who sacrifice honor for expedience… shall I feel nay shame in the doing of it?” He rolled suddenly to face me, eyes troubled in the starlight.

“I willna turn back – I cannot, now – but Sassenach, sometimes I do sorrow for that bit of myself I have left behind.”

“It’s my fault,” I said softly. I touched his face, the thick brows, wide mouth, and the sprouting stubble along the clean, long jaw. “Mine. If I hadn’t come… and told you what would happen…” I felt a true sorrow for his corruption, and shared a sense of loss for the naive, gallant lad he had been. And yet… what choice had either of us truly had, being who we were? I had had to tell him, and he had had to act on it. An Old Testament line drifted through my mind: “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.”

As though he had picked up this biblical strain of thought, he smiled faintly.

“Aye, well,” he said. “I dinna recall Adam’s asking God to take back Eve – and look what she did to him.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead as I laughed, then drew the blanket up over my bare shoulders. “Go to sleep, my wee rib. I shall be needin’ a helpmeet in the morning.”

An odd metallic noise woke me. I poked my head out of the blanket and blinked in the direction of the noise, to find my nose a foot from Jamie’s plaid-covered knee.

“Awake, are ye?” Something silvery and chinking suddenly descended in front of my face, and a heavy weight settled around my neck.

“What on earth is this?” I asked, sitting up in astonishment and peering downward. I seemed to be wearing a necklace composed of a large number of three-inch metal objects, each with a divided shank and a hooped top, strung together on a leather bootlace. Some of the objects were rusted at the tops, others brand-new. All showed scratches along the length of the shanks, as though they had been wrenched by force out of some larger object.

“Trophies of war, Sassenach,” said Jamie.

I looked up at him, and uttered a small shriek at the sight.

“Oh,” he said, putting a hand to his face. “I forgot. I hadna time to wash it off.”

“You scared me to death,” I said, hand pressed to my palpitating heart. “What is it?”

“Charcoal,” he said, voice muffled in the cloth he was rubbing over his face. He let it down and grinned at me. The rubbing had removed some of the blackening from nose, chin and forehead, which glowed pinkish-bronze through the remaining smears, but his eyes were still ringed black as a raccoon’s, and charcoal lines bracketed his mouth. It was barely dawn, and in the dim light of the tent, his darkened face and hair tended to fade into the drab background of the canvas wall behind him, giving the distinctly unsettling impression that I was speaking to a headless body.

“It was your idea,” he said.

“My idea? You look like the end man in a minstrel show,” I replied. “What the hell have you been doing?”

His teeth gleamed a brilliant white amid the sooty creases of his face.

“Commando raid,” he said, with immense satisfaction. “Commando? Is that the right word?”

“Oh, God,” I said. “You’ve been in the English camp? Christ! Not alone, I hope?”

“I couldna leave my men out of the fun, could I? I left three of them to guard you, and the rest of us had a verra profitable night.” He gestured at my necklace with pride.

“Cotter pins from the cannon carriages. We couldna take the cannon, or damage them without noise, but they’ll no be goin’ far, wi’ no wheels to them. And the hell of a lot of good sixteen gallopers will do General Cope, stranded out on the moor.”

I examined my necklace critically.

“That’s well and good, but can’t they contrive new cotter pins? It looks like you could make something like this from heavy wire.”

He nodded, his air of smugness abating not a whit.

“Oh, aye. They could. But nay bit o’ good it will do them, wi’ no new wheels to put them to.” He lifted the tent flap, and gestured down toward the foot of the hill, where I could now see Murtagh, black as a wizened demon, supervising the activities of several similarly decorated subdemons, who were gaily feeding the last of thirty-two large wooden wheels into a roaring fire. The iron rims of the wheels lay in a stack to one side; Fergus, Kincaid, and one of the other young men had improvised a game with one of them, rolling it to and fro with sticks. Ross sat on a log nearby, sipping at a horn cup and idly twirling another round his burly forearm.

I laughed at the sight.

“Jamie, you are clever!”

“I may be clever,” he replied, “but you’re half-naked, and we’re leaving now. Have ye something to put on? We left the sentinels tied up in an abandoned sheep-pen, but the rest of them will be up by now, and none so far behind us. We’d best be off.”

As though to emphasize his words, the tent suddenly shook above me, as someone jerked free the lines on one side. I uttered an alarmed squeak and dived for the saddlebags as Jamie left to superintend the details of departure.

It was midafternoon before we reached the village of Tranent. Perched on the hills above the seaside, the usually tranquil hamlet was reeling under the impact of the Highland army. The main bulk of the army was visible on the hills beyond, overlooking the small plain that stretched toward the shore. But with the usual disorganized comings and goings, there were as many men in Tranent as out of it, with detachments coming and going in more or less military formation, messengers galloping to and fro – some on ponies, some by shanks’ mare – and the wives, children, and camp followers, who overflowed the cottages and sat outside, leaning on stone walls and nursing babies in the intermittent sun, calling to passing messengers for word of the most recent action.

We halted at the edge of this seethe of activity, and Jamie sent Murtagh to discover the whereabouts of Lord George Murray, the army’s commander in chief, while he made a hasty toilet in one of the cottages.

My own appearance left a good bit to be desired; while not deliberately covered with charcoal, my face undoubtedly sported a few streaks of grime left as tokens of several nights spent sleeping out-of-doors. The goodwife kindly lent me a towel and a comb, and I was seated at her table, doing battle with my ungovernable locks, when the door opened and Lord George himself burst in without ceremony.

His usually impeccable dress was disheveled, with several buttons of his waistcoat undone, his stock slipped loose, and one garter come untied. His wig had been thrust unceremoniously into his pocket, and his own thinning brown curls stood on end, as though he had been tugging at them in frustration.

“Thank God!” he said. “A sane face, at last!” Then he leaned forward, squinting as he peered at Jamie. Most of the charcoal dust had been rinsed from the blazing hair, but gray rivulets ran down his face and dripped on his shirtfront, and his ears, which had been overlooked in the hastiness of his ablutions, were still coal-black.

“What-” began a startled Lord George, but he broke off, shook his head rapidly once or twice as though to dismiss some figment of his imagination, and resumed his conversation as though he had noticed nothing out of the ordinary.

“How does it go, sir?” said Jamie respectfully, also affecting not to notice the ribboned tail of the periwig which hung out of Lord George’s pocket, wagging like the tail of a small dog as His Lordship gestured violently.

“How does it go?” he echoed. “Why, I’ll tell you, sir! It goes to the east, and then it goes to the west, and then half of it comes downhill to have luncheon, while the other half marches off to devil-knows-where! That’s how it goes!”

“ ‘It,’ ” he said, momentarily relieved by his outburst, “being His Highness’s loyal Highland army.” Somewhat calmer, he began to tell us of the events transpiring since the army’s first arrival in Tranent the day before.

Arriving with the army, Lord George had left the bulk of the men in the village and rushed with a small detachment to take possession of the ridge above the plain. Prince Charles, coming along somewhat later, had been displeased with this action and said so – loudly and publicly. His Highness had then taken half the army and marched off westward, the Duke of Perth – nominally the other commander in chief – tamely in tow, presumably to assess the possibilities of attacking through Preston.

With the army divided, and His Lordship occupied in conferring with villagemen who knew the hell of a lot more about the surrounding terrain than did either His Highness or His Lordship, O’Sullivan, one of the Prince’s Irish confidants, had taken it upon himself to order a contingent of Lochiel’s Cameron clansmen to the Tranent churchyard.

“Cope, of course, brought up a pair of galloper guns and bombarded them,” Lord George said grimly. “And I’ve had the devil of a time with Lochiel this afternoon. He was rather understandably upset at having a number of his men wounded for no evident purpose. He asked that they be withdrawn, which request I naturally acceded to. Whereupon here comes His Highness’s frog-spawn, O’Sullivan – pest! Simply because he landed at Eriskay with His Highness, the man thinks he – well, anyway, he comes whining that the presence of the Camerons in the churchyard is essential – essential, mind you! – if we are to attack from the west. Told him in no uncertain terms that we attack from the east, if at all. Which prospect is exceedingly doubtful at the moment, insofar as we do not presently know exactly where half of our men are – nor His Highness, come to that,” he added, in a tone that made it clear that he considered the whereabouts of Prince Charles a matter of academic interest only.

“And the chiefs! Lochiel’s Camerons drew the lot that gives them the honor of fighting on the right hand in the battle – if there is one – but the MacDonalds, having agreed to the arrangement, now energetically deny having done any such thing, and insist that they will not fight at all if they’re denied their traditional privilege of fighting on the right.”

Having started this recitation calmly enough, Lord George had grown heated again in the telling, and at this point sprang to his feet again, rubbing his scalp energetically with both hands.

“The Camerons have been drilled all day. By now, they’ve been marched to and fro so much that they can’t tell their pricks from their arseholes – saving your presence, mum,” he added, with a distracted glance at me, “and Clanranald’s men have been having fistfights with Glengarry’s.” He paused, lower jaw thrust out, face red. “If Glengarry wasn’t who he is, I’d… ah, well.” He dismissed Glengarry with a flip of the hand and resumed his pacing.

“The only saving grace of the matter,” he said, “is that the English have been forced to turn themselves about as well, in response to our movements. They’ve turned Cope’s entire force no less than four times, and now he’s strung his right flank out nearly to the sea, no doubt wondering what in God’s name we’ll do next.” He bent and peered out the window, as though expecting to see General Cope himself advancing down the main road to inquire.

“Er… where exactly is your half of the army at present, sir?” Jamie made a move as though to join His Lordship in his random peregrinations about the cottage, but was restrained by my grip on his collar. Armed with a towel and a bowl of warm water, I had occupied myself during His Lordship’s exegesis with removing the soot from my husband’s ears. They stood out now, glowing pinkly with earnestness.

“On the ridge just south of town.”

“We still hold the high ground, then?”

“Yes, it sounds good, doesn’t it?” His Lordship smiled bleakly. “However, occupation of the high ground profits us relatively little, in consideration of the fact that the ground just below the ridge is riddled with pools and boggy marsh. God’s eyes! There’s a six-foot ditch filled with water that runs a hundred feet along the base of that ridge! There’s scarce five hundred yards between the armies this moment, and it might as well be five hundred miles, for all we can do.” Lord George plunged a hand into his pocket in search of a handkerchief, brought it out, and stood staring blankly at the wig with which he had been about to wipe his face.

I delicately offered him the sooty handkerchief. He closed his eyes, inhaled strongly through both nostrils, then opened them and bowed to me with his usual courtly manner.

“Your servant, mum.” He polished his face thoroughly with the filthy rag, handed it politely back to me, and clapped the tousled wig on his head.

“Damn my liver,” he said distinctly, “if I let that fool lose this engagement for us.” He turned to Jamie with decision.

“How many men have you, Fraser?”

“Thirty, sir.”

“Horses?”

“Six, sir. And four ponies for pack animals.”

“Pack animals? Ah. Carrying provisions for your men?”

“Yes, sir. And sixty sacks of meal abstracted from an English detachment last night. Oh, and one sixteen-inch mortar, sir.”

Jamie imparted this last bit of information with an air of such perfect offhand casualness that I wanted to cram the handkerchief down his throat. Lord George stared at him for a moment, then one corner of his mouth twitched upward in a smile.

“Ah? Well, come with me, Fraser. You can tell me all about it on the way.” He wheeled toward the door, and Jamie, with a wide-eyed glance at me, caught up his hat and followed.

At the cottage door, Lord George stopped suddenly, and turned back. He glanced up at Jamie’s towering form, shirt collar undone and coat flung hastily over one arm.

“I may be in a hurry, Fraser, but we have still sufficient time to observe the civilities. Go and kiss your wife goodbye, man. Meet me outside.”

Turning on his heel, he made a leg to me, bowing deeply, so that the tail of his wig flopped forward.

“Your servant, mum.”

I knew enough about armies to realize that nothing apparent was likely to happen for some time, and sure enough, it didn’t. Random parties of men marched up and down the single main street of Tranent. Wives, camp followers, and the displaced citizens of Tranent milled aimlessly, uncertain whether to stay or go. Messengers darted sideways through the crowd, carrying notes.

I had met Lord George before, in Paris. He was not a man to stand on ceremony when action would better suit, though I thought it likely that the fraying of his temper at Prince Charles’s actions, and a desire to escape the company of O’Sullivan, were more responsible for his coming in person to meet Jamie than any desire either for expeditiousness or confidentiality. When the total strength of the Highland army stood somewhere between fifteen hundred and two thousand, thirty men were neither to be regarded as a gift from the gods, nor sneered at altogether.

I glanced at Fergus, fidgeting to and fro like a hoptoad with St. Vitus’s dance, and decided that I might as well send a few messages myself. There is a saying, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” I promptly invented its analogy, based on experience: “When no one knows what to do, anyone with a sensible suggestion is going to be listened to.”

There was paper and ink in the saddlebags. I sat down, watched with an almost superstitious awe by the goodwife, who had likely never seen a woman write anything before, and composed a note to Jenny Cameron. It was she who had led three hundred Cameron clansmen across the mountains to join Prince Charles, when he had raised his banner at Glenfinnan on the coast. Her brother Hugh, arriving home belatedly and hearing what had happened, had ridden posthaste to Glenfinnan to take the chieftain’s place at the head of his men, but Jenny had declined to go home and miss the fun. She had thoroughly enjoyed the brief stop in Edinburgh, where Charles received the plaudits of his loyal subjects, but she had been equally willing to accompany her Prince on his way to battle.

I hadn’t a signet, but Jamie’s bonnet was in one of the bags, bearing a badge with the Fraser clan crest and motto. I dug it out and pressed it into the splodge of warm candle wax with which I had sealed the note. It looked very official.

“For the Scottish milady with the freckles,” I instructed Fergus, and with satisfaction saw him dart out the door and into the melee in the street. I had no idea where Jenny Cameron was at the moment, but the officers were quartered in the manse near the kirk, and that was as good a place to start as any. At least the search would keep Fergus out of mischief.

That errand out of the way, I turned to the cottage wife.

“Now, then,” I said. “What have you got in the way of blankets, napkins, and petticoats?”

I soon found that I had been correct in my surmise as to the force of Jenny Cameron’s personality. A woman who could raise three hundred men and lead them across the mountains to fight for an iian-accented fop with a taste for brandywine was bound to have both a low threshold of boredom and a rare talent for bullying people into doing what she wanted.

“Verra sensible,” she said, having heard my plan. “Cousin Archie’s made some arrangements, I expect, but of course he’s wanting to be with the army just now.” Her firm chin stuck out a little farther. “That’s where the fun is, after all,” she said wryly.

“I’m surprised you didn’t insist on going along,” I said.

She laughed, her small, homely face with its undershot jaw making her look like a good-humored bulldog.

“I would if I could, but I can’t,” she admitted frankly. “Now that Hugh’s come, he keeps trying to make me go home. Told him I was” – she glanced around to be sure we weren’t overheard, and lowered her voice conspiratorially – “damned if I’d go home and sit. Not while I can be of use here.”

Standing on the cottage doorstep, she looked thoughtfully up and down the street.

“I didn’t think they’d listen to me,” I said. “Being English.”

“Aye, you’re right,” she said, “but they will to me. I don’t know how many the wounded will be – pray God not many,” and she crossed herself unobtrusively. “But we’d best start with the houses near the manse; it’ll be less trouble to carry water from the well.” With decision, she stepped off the doorstep and headed down the street, me following close behind.

We were aided not only by the persuasion of Miss Cameron’s position and person but by the fact that sitting and waiting is one of the most miserable occupations known to man – not that it usually is known to men; women do it much more often. By the time the sun sank behind Tranent kirk, we had the bare rudiments of a hospital brigade organized.

The leaves were beginning to fall from larch and alder in the nearby wood, lying loose, flat and yellow on the sandy ground. Here and there a leaf had crisped and curled to brown, and took off scudding in the wind like a small boat over rough seas.

One of these spiraled past me, settling gently as its wind current failed. I caught it on my palm and held it for a moment, admiring the perfection of midribs and veins, a lacy skeleton that would remain past the rotting of the blade. There was a sudden puff of wind, and the cup-curled leaf lifted off my hand, to tumble to the ground and go rolling along, down the empty street.

Shading my eyes against the setting sun, I could see the ridge beyond the town where the Highland army was camped. His Highness’s half of the army had returned an hour before, sweeping the last stragglers from the village as they marched to join Lord George. At this distance, I could only pick out an occasional tiny figure, black against the graying sky, as here and there a man came over the crest of the ridge. A quarter-mile past the end of the street, I could see the first lighting of the English fires, burning pale in the dying light. The thick smell of burning peat from the cottages joined the sharper scent of the English wood fires, overlying the tang of the nearby sea.

Such preparations as could be made were under way. The wives and families of the Highland soldiers had been welcomed with generous hospitality, and were now mostly housed in the cottages along the main street, sharing their hosts’ plain supper of brose and salt herring. My own supper was waiting inside, though I had little appetite.

A small form appeared at my elbow, quiet as the lengthening shadows.

“Will you come and eat, Madame? The goodwife is keeping food for you.”

“Oh? Oh, yes, Fergus. Yes, I’ll come.” I cast a last glance toward the ridge, then turned back to the cottages.

“Are you coming, Fergus?” I asked, seeing him still standing in the street. He was shading his eyes, trying to see the activities on the ridge beyond the town. Firmly ordered by Jamie to stay with me, he was plainly longing to be with the fighting men, preparing for battle on the morrow.

“Uh? Oh, yes, Madame.” He turned with a sigh, resigned for the moment to a life of boring peace.

The long days of summer were yielding quickly to darkness, and the lamps were lit well before we had finished our preparations. The night outside was restless with constant movement and the glow of fires on the horizon. Fergus, unable to keep still, flitted in and out of the cottages, carrying messages, collecting rumors and bobbing up out of the shadows periodically like a small, dark ghost, eyes gleaming with excitement.

“Madame,” he said, plucking at my sleeve as I ripped linens into strips and threw them into a pile for sterilization. “Madame!”

“What is it this time, Fergus?” I was mildly irritated at the intrusion; I had been in the middle of a lecture to a group of housewives on the importance of washing the hands frequently while treating the wounded.

“A man, Madame. He is wanting to speak with the commander of His Highness’s army. He has important information, he says.”

“Well, I’m not stopping him, am I?” I tugged at a recalcitrant shirt seam, then used my teeth to wrench loose the end, and yanked. It tore cleanly, with a satisfying ripping sound.

I spit out a thread or two. He was still there, waiting patiently.

“All right,” I said, resigned. “What do you – or he – think I can do about it?”

“If you will give me permission, Madame,” he said eagerly, “I could guide him to my master. He could arrange for the man to speak to the commander.”

“He,” of course, could do anything, so far as Fergus was concerned; including, no doubt, walking on water, turning water into wine, and inducing Lord George to talk to mysterious strangers who materialized out of the darkness with important information.

I brushed the hair out of my eyes; I had tied it back under a kertch, but curly strands kept escaping.

“Is this man somewhere nearby?”

That was all the encouragement he needed; he disappeared through the open door, returning momentarily with a thin young man whose eager gaze fastened at once on my face.

“Mrs. Fraser?” He bowed awkwardly at my nod, wiping his hands on his breeches as though he didn’t know quite what to do with them, but wanted to be ready if something suggested itself.

“I – I’m Richard Anderson, of Whitburgh.”

“Oh? Well, good for you,” I said politely. “My servant says you have some valuable information for Lord George Murray.”

He nodded, bobbing his head like a water ouzel. “Ye see, Mrs. Fraser, I’ve lived in these parts all my life. I – I know all of that ground where the armies are, know it like the back o’ my hand. And there’s a way down from the ridge where the Highland troops are camped – a trail that will lead them past the ditch at the bottom.”

“I see.” I felt a hollowing of the stomach at these words. If the Highlanders were to charge out of the rising sun next morning, they would have to leave the high ground of the ridge during the night watches. And if a charge was to be successful, plainly that ditch must be crossed or bypassed.

While I thought I knew what was to come, I had no certainty at all about it. I had been married to an historian – and the usual faint stab came at the thought of Frank – and knew just how unreliable historical sources often were. For that matter, I had no surety that my own presence couldn’t or wouldn’t change anything.

For the space of a moment, I wondered wildly what might happen if I tried to keep Richard Anderson from speaking to Lord George. Would the outcome of tomorrow’s battle be changed? Would the Highland army – including Jamie and his men – be slaughtered as they ran downhill over boggy ground and into a ditch? Would Lord George come up with another plan that would work? Or would Richard Anderson merely go off on his own and find a way of speaking to Lord George himself, regardless of what I did?

It wasn’t a risk I cared to take for experiment’s sake. I looked down at Fergus, fidgeting with impatience to be gone.

“Do you think you can find your master? It’s black as the inside of a coal hole up on that ridge. I wouldn’t like either of you to be shot by mistake, traipsing around up there.”

“I can find him, Madame,” Fergus said confidently. He probably could, I thought. He seemed to have a sort of radar where Jamie was concerned.

“All right, then,” I conceded. “But for God’s sake, be careful.”

“Oui, Madame!” In a flash, he was at the door, vibrating with eagerness to be gone.

It was half an hour after they had left that I noticed the knife I had left on the table was gone as well. And only then did I remember, with a sickening lurch of my stomach, that while I had told Fergus to be careful, I had forgotten altogether to tell him to come back.

The sound of the first cannon came in the lightening predawn, a dull, booming noise that seemed to echo through the plank boards on which I slept. My buttocks tightened, the involuntary flattening of a tail I didn’t possess, and my fingers clasped those of the woman lying under the blanket next to me. The knowledge that something is going to happen should be some defense, but somehow it never is.

There was a faint moan from one corner of the cottage, and the woman next to me muttered, “Mary, Michael, and Bride preserve us,” under her breath. There was a stirring over the floor as the women began to rise. There was little talk, as though all ears were pricked to catch the sounds of battle from the plain below.

I caught sight of one of the Highlanders’ wives, a Mrs. MacPherson, as she folded her blanket next to the graying window. Her face was blank with fear, and she closed her eyes with a small shudder as another muffled boom came from below.

I revised my opinion as to the uselessness of knowledge. These women had no knowledge of secret trails, sunrise charges, and surprise routs. All these women knew was that their husbands and sons were now facing the cannon and musket fire of an English army four times their number.

Prediction is a risky business at the best of times, and I knew they would pay me no mind. The best thing I could do for them was to keep them busy. A fleeting image crossed my mind, of the rising sun shining bright off blazing hair, making a perfect target of its owner. A second image followed hard on its heels; a squirrel-toothed boy, armed with a stolen butcher knife and a bright-eyed belief in the glories of war. I closed my own eyes and swallowed hard. Keeping busy was the best thing I could do for myself.

“Ladies!” I said. “We’ve done a lot, but there’s a lot more to do. We shall be needing boiling water. Cauldrons for boiling, cream pans for soaking. Parritch for those who can eat; milk for those who can’t. Tallow and garlic for dressings. Wood laths for splints. Bottles and jugs, cups and spoons. Sewing needles and stout thread. Mrs. MacPherson, if you would be so kind…”

I knew little of the battle, except which side was supposed to win, and that the casualties of the Jacobite army were to be “light.” From the far-off, blurry page of the textbook, I again retrieved that tiny bit of information: “…while the Jacobites triumphed, with only thirty casualties.”

Casualties. Fatalities, I corrected. Any injury is a casualty, in nursing terms, and there were a good many more than thirty in my cottage as the sun burned its way upward through the sea mist toward noon. Slowly, the victors of the battle were making their way in triumph back toward Tranent, the sound of body helping their wounded comrades.

Oddly enough, His Highness had ordered that the English wounded be retrieved first from the field of battle and carefully tended. “They are my Father’s subjects,” he said firmly, making the capital “F” thoroughly audible, “and I will have them well cared for.” The fact that the Highlanders who had just won the battle for him were also presumably his Father’s subjects seemed to have escaped his notice for the moment.

“Given the behavior of the Father and the Son,” I muttered to Jenny Cameron on hearing this, “the Highland army had better hope that the Holy Ghost doesn’t choose to descend today.”

A look of shock at this blasphemous observation crossed the face of Mrs. MacPherson, but Jenny laughed.

The whoops and shrieks of Gaelic celebration overwhelmed the faint groans of the wounded, borne in on makeshift stretchers made of planks or bound-together muskets, or more often, leaning on the arms of friends for support. Some of the casualties staggered in under their own power, beaming and drunk on their own exuberance, the pain of their wounds seeming a minor inconvenience in the face of glorious vindication of their faith. Despite the injuries that brought them here to be tended, the intoxicating knowledge of victory filled the house with a mood of hilarious exhilaration.

“Christ, did ye see ’em scutter like wee mousies wi’ a cat on their tails?” said one patient to another, seemingly oblivious of the nasty powder burn that had singed his left arm from knuckles to shoulder.

“And a rare good many of ’em missin’ their tails,” answered his friend, with a chortle.

Joy was not quite universal; here and there, small parties of subdued Highlanders could be seen making their way across the hills, carrying the still form of a friend, plaid’s end covering a face gone blank and empty with heaven’s seeing.

It was the first test of my chosen assistants, and they rose to the challenge as well as had the warriors of the field. That is, they balked and complained and made nuisances of themselves, and then, when necessity struck, threw themselves into battle with unparalleled fierceness.

Not that they stopped complaining while they did it.

Mrs. McMurdo returned with yet another full bottle, which she hung in the assigned place on the cottage wall, before stooping to rummage in the tub that held the bottles of honey water. The elderly wife of a Tranent fisherman pressed into army service, she was the waterer on this shift; in charge of going from man to man, urging each to sip as much of the sweetened fluid as could be tolerated – and then making a second round to deal with the results, equipped with two or three empty bottles.

“If ye didna gie them so much to drink, they’d no piss sae much,” she complained – not for the first time.

“They need the water,” I explained patiently – not for the first time. “It keeps their blood pressure up, and replaces some of the fluids they’ve lost, and helps avoid shock – well, look, woman, do you see many of them dying?” I demanded, suddenly losing a good deal of my patience in the face of Mrs. McMurdo’s continuing dubiousness and complaints; her nearly toothless mouth lent a note of mournfulness to an already dour expression – all is lost, it seemed to say; why trouble further?

“Mphm,” she said. Since she took the water and returned to her rounds without further remonstrance, I took this sound for at least temporary assent.

I stepped outside to escape both Mrs. McMurdo and the atmosphere in the cottage. It was thick with smoke, heat, and the fug of unwashed bodies, and I felt a bit dizzy.

The streets were filled with men, drunk, celebrating, laden with plunder from the battlefield. One group of men in the reddish tartan of the MacGillivrays pulled an English cannon, tethered with ropes like a dangerous wild beast. The resemblance was enhanced by the fanciful carvings of crouching wolves that decorated the touch-hole and muzzle. One of General Cope’s showpieces, I supposed.

Then I recognized the small black figure riding astride the cannon’s muzzle, hair sticking up like a bottle brush. I closed my eyes in momentary thankfulness, then opened them and hastened down the street to drag him off the cannon.

“Wretch!” I said, giving him a shake and then a hug. “What do you mean sneaking off like that? If I weren’t so busy, I’d box your ears ’til your head rattled!”

“Madame,” he said, blinking stupidly in the afternoon sun. “Madame.”

I realized he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. “Are you all right?” I asked, more gently.

A look of puzzlement crossed his face, smeared with mud and powder-stains. He nodded, and a sort of dazed smile appeared through the grime.

“I killed an English soldier, Madame.”

“Oh?” I was unsure whether he wanted congratulation, or needed comfort. He was ten.

His brow wrinkled, and his face screwed up as though trying very hard to remember something.

“I think I killed him. He fell down, and I stuck him with my knife.” He looked at me in bewilderment, as though I could supply the answer.

“Come along, Fergus,” I said. “We’ll find you some food and a place to sleep. Don’t think about it anymore.”

“Oui, Madame.” He stumbled obediently along beside me, but within moments, I could see that he was about to fall flat on his face. I picked him up, with some difficulty, and lugged him toward the cottages near the church where I had centered our hospital operation. I had intended to feed him first, but he was sound asleep by the time I reached the spot where O’Sullivan was attempting – with little success – to organize his commissary wagons.

Instead, I left him curled in the box bed in one of the cottages, where a woman was looking after assorted children while their mothers tended wounded men. It seemed the best place for him.

The cottage had filled up with twenty or thirty men by midafternoon, and my two-woman staff was hopping. The house normally held a family of five or six, and the men able to stand were standing on the plaids of those lying down. In the distance across the small flat, I could see officers coming and going to the manse, the minister’s residence commandeered by the High Command. I kept an eye on the battered door, which hung constantly ajar, but didn’t see Jamie among those arriving to report casualties and receive congratulations.

I batted away the recurrent small gnat of worry, telling myself that I didn’t see him among the wounded, either. I had not had time since early on to visit the small tent up the slope, where the dead of the battle were being laid out in orderly rows, as though awaiting a last inspection. But surely he could not be there.

Surely not, I told myself.

The door swung open and Jamie walked in.

I felt my knees give slightly at sight of him, and put out a hand to steady myself on the cottage’s wooden chimney. He had been looking for me; his eyes darted around the room before they lighted on me, and a heart-stopping smile lit his face.

He was filthy, grimed with black-powder smoke, splattered with blood, and barefoot, legs and feet caked with mud. But he was whole, and standing. I wasn’t inclined to quibble with the details.

Cries of greeting from some of the wounded men on the floor dragged his gaze away from me. He glanced down, smiled at George McClure, grinning up at his commander despite an ear that hung from his head by a sliver of flesh, then looked quickly back at me.

Thank God, his dark-blue eyes said, and Thank God, my own echoed back.

There was no time for more; wounded men were still coming in, and every able-bodied nonmilitary person in the village had been pressed into service to care for them. Archie Cameron, Lochiel’s doctor brother, bustled back and forth among the cottages, nominally in charge, and actually doing some good here and there.

I had arranged that any Fraser men from Lallybroch should be brought to the cottage where I was conducting my own triage, quickly evaluating the severity of wounds, sending the still-mobile down the street to be dealt with by Jenny Cameron, the dying across to Archie Cameron’s headquarters in the church – I did think him competent to dispense laudanum, and the surroundings might provide some consolation.

Serious wounds I dealt with as I could. Broken bones next door, where two surgeons from the Macintosh regiment could apply splints and bandages. Nonfatal chest wounds propped as comfortably as possible against one wall in a half-sitting position to assist breathing; lacking oxygen or facilities for surgical repair, there was little else I could do for them. Serious head wounds were dispatched to the church with the obviously dying; I had nothing to offer them, and they were better off in the hands of God, if not Archie Cameron.

Shattered and missing limbs and abdominal wounds were the worst. There was no possibility of sterility; all I could do was to cleanse my own hands between patients, browbeat my assistants into doing the same – so long as they were under my direct scrutiny, anyway – and try to ensure that the dressings we applied had all been boiled before application. I knew, beyond doubt, that similar precautions were being ignored as a waste of time in the other cottages, despite my lectures. If I couldn’t convince the sisters and physicians of L’Hôpital des Anges of the existence of germs, I was unlikely to succeed with a mixed bag of Scottish housewives and army surgeons who doubled as farriers.

I blocked my mind to the thought of the men with treatable injuries who would die from infection. I could give the men of Lallybroch, and a few more, the benefit of clean hands and bandages; I couldn’t worry about the rest. One dictum I had learned on the battlefields of France in a far distant war: You cannot save the world, but you might save the man in front of you, if you work fast enough.

Jamie stood a moment in the doorway, assessing the situation, then moved to help with the heavy work, shifting patients, lifting cauldrons of hot water, fetching buckets of clean water from the well in Tranent square. Relieved of fear for him, and caught up in the whirlwind of work and detail, I forgot about him for the most part.

The triage station of any field hospital always bears a strong resemblance to an abattoir, and this was no exception. The floor was pounded dirt, not a bad surface, insofar as it absorbed blood and other liquids. On the other hand, saturated spots did become muddy, making the footing hazardous.

Steam billowed from the boiling cauldron over the fire, adding to the heat of exertion. Everyone streamed with moisture; the workers with the sticky wash of exercise, the wounded men with the stinking sweat of fear and long-spent rage. The dissipating fog of black-powder smoke from the battlefield below drifted through the streets of Tranent and in through the open doors, its eye-stinging haze threatening the purity of the freshly boiled linens, hung dripping from the mackeral-drying rack by the fire.

The flow of the wounded came in waves, washing into the cottage like surf-scour, churning everything into confusion with the arrival of each fresh surge. We thrashed about, fighting the pull of the tide, and were left at last, gasping, to deal with the new flotsam left behind as each wave ebbed.

There are lulls, of course, in the most frantic activity. These began to come more frequently in the afternoon, and toward sundown, as the flow of wounded dropped to a trickle, we began to settle into a routine of caring for the patients who remained with us. It was still busy, but there was at last time to draw breath, to stand in one place for a moment and look around.

I was standing by the open door, breathing in the freshening breeze of the offshore wind, when Jamie came back into the cottage, carrying an armload of firewood. Dumping it by the hearth, he came back to stand by me, one hand resting briefly on my shoulder. Trickles of sweat ran down the edge of his jaw, and I reached up to dab them with a corner of my apron.

“Have you been to the other cottages?” I asked.

He nodded, breath beginning to slow. His face was so blotched with smoke and blood that I couldn’t tell for sure, but thought he looked pale.

“Aye. There’s still looting going on in the field, and a good many men still missing. All of our own wounded are here, though – none elsewhere.” He nodded at the far end of the cottage where the three wounded men from Lallybroch lay or sat companionably near the hearth, trading good-natured insults with the other Scots. The few English wounded in this cottage lay by themselves, near the door. They talked much less, content to contemplate the bleak prospects of captivity.

“None bad?” he asked me, looking at the three.

I shook my head. “George McClure might lose the ear; I can’t tell. But no; I think they’ll be all right.”

“Good.” He gave me a tired smile, and wiped his hot face on the end of his plaid. I saw he had wrapped it carelessly around his body instead of draping it over one shoulder. Probably to keep it out of the way, but it must have been hot.

Turning to go, he reached for the water bottle hanging from the door peg.

“Not that one!” I said.

“Why not?” he asked, puzzled. He shook the wide-mouthed flask, with a faint sloshing sound. “It’s full.”

“I know it is,” I said. “That’s what I’ve been using as a urinal.”

“Oh.” Holding the bottle by two fingers, he reached to replace it, but I stopped him.

“No, go ahead and take it,” I suggested. “You can empty it outside, and fill this one at the well.” I handed him another gray stone bottle, identical with the first.

“Try not to get them mixed up,” I said helpfully.

“Mmphm,” he replied, giving me a Scottish look to go along with the noise, and turned toward the door.

“Hey!” I said, seeing him clearly from the back. “What’s that?”

“What?” he said, startled, trying to peer over one shoulder.

“That!” My fingers traced the muddy shape I had spotted above the sagging plaid, printed on the grubby linen of his shirt with the clarity of a stencil. “It looks like a horseshoe,” I said disbelievingly.

“Oh, that,” he said, shrugging.

“A horse stepped on you?”

“Well, not on purpose,” he said, defensive on the horse’s behalf. “Horses dinna like to step on people; I suppose it feels a wee bit squashy underfoot.”

“I would suppose it does,” I agreed, preventing his attempts to escape by holding on to one sleeve. “Stand still. How the hell did this happen?”

“It’s no matter,” he protested. “The ribs don’t feel broken, only a trifle bruised.”

“Oh, just a trifle,” I agreed sarcastically. I had worked the stained fabric free in back, and could see the clear, sharp imprint of a curved horseshoe, embedded in the fair flesh of his back, just above the waist. “Christ, you can see the horseshoe nails.” He winced involuntarily as I ran my finger over the marks.

It had happened during one brief sally by the mounted dragoons, he explained. The Highlanders, mostly unaccustomed to horses other than the small, shaggy Highland ponies, were convinced that the English cavalry horses had been trained to attack them with hooves and teeth. Panicked at the horses’ charge, they had dived under the horses’ hooves, slashing ferociously at legs and bellies with swords and scythes and axes.

“And you think they aren’t?”

“Of course not, Sassenach,” he said impatiently. “He wasna trying to attack me. The rider wanted to get away, but he was sealed in on either side. There was noplace to go but over me.”

Seeing this realization dawn in the eyes of the horse’s rider, a split second before the dragoon applied spurs to his mount’s sides, Jamie had flung himself flat on his face, arms over his head.

“Then the next was the breath bursting from my lungs,” he explained. “I felt the dunt of it, but it didna hurt. Not then.” He reached back and rubbed a hand absently over the mark, grimacing slightly.

“Right,” I said, dropping the edge of the shirt. “Have you had a piss since then?”

He stared at me as though I had gone suddenly barmy.

“You’ve had four-hundredweight of horse step smack on one of your kidneys,” I explained, a trifle impatiently. There were wounded men waiting. “I want to know if there’s blood in your urine.”

“Oh,” he said, his expression clearing. “I don’t know.”

“Well, let’s find out, shall we?” I had placed my big medicine box out of the way in one corner; now I rummaged about in it and withdrew one of the small glass urinoscopy cups I had acquired from L’Hôpital des Anges.

“Fill it up and give it back to me.” I handed it to him and turned back toward the hearth, where a cauldron full of boiling linens awaited my attention.

I glanced back to find him still regarding the cup with a slightly quizzical expression.

“Need help, lad?” A big English soldier on the floor was peering up from his pallet, grinning at Jamie.

A flash of white teeth showed in the filth of Jamie’s face. “Oh, aye,” he said. He leaned down, offering the cup to the Englishman. “Here, hold this for me while I aim.”

A ripple of mirth passed through the men nearby, distracting them momentarily from their distress.

After a moment’s hesitation, the Englishman’s big fist closed around the fragile cup. The man had taken a dose of shrapnel in one hip, and his grip was none too steady, but he still smiled, despite the sweat dewing his upper lip.

“Sixpence says you can’t make it,” he said. He moved the cup, so it stood on the floor three or four feet from Jamie’s bare toes. “From where you stand now.”

Jamie looked down thoughtfully, rubbing his chin with one hand as he measured the distance. The man whose arm I was dressing had stopped groaning, absorbed in the developing drama.

“Weel, I’ll no say it would be easy,” Jamie said, letting his Scots broaden on purpose. “But for sixpence? Aye, weel, that’s a sum might make it worth the effort, eh?” His eyes, always faintly slanted, turned catlike with his grin.

“Easy money, lad,” said the Englishman, breathing heavily but still grinning. “For me.”

“Two silver pennies on the lad,” called one of the MacDonald clansmen in the chimney corner.

An English soldier, coat turned inside-out to denote his prisoner status, fumbled inside the skirts, searching for the opening of his pocket.

“Ha! A pouch of weed against!” he called, triumphantly holding up a small cloth bag of tobacco.

Shouted wagers and rude remarks began to fly through the air as Jamie squatted down and made a great show of estimating the distance to the cup.

“All right,” he said at last, standing up and throwing back his shoulders. “Are ye set, then?”

The Englishman on the floor chuckled. “Oh, I’m set, lad.”

“Well, then.”

An expectant hush fell over the room. Men raised on their elbows to watch, ignoring both discomfort and enmity in their interest.

Jamie glanced around the room, nodded at his Lallybroch men, then slowly raised the hem of his kilt and reached beneath it. He frowned in concentration, groping randomly, then let an expression of doubt flit across his countenance.

“I had it when I went out,” he said, and the room erupted in laughter.

Grinning at the success of his joke, he raised his kilt further, grasped his clearly visible weapon and took careful aim. He squinted his eyes, bent his knees slightly, and his fingers tightened their grip.

Nothing happened.

“It’s a misfire!” crowed one of the English.

“His powder’s wet!” Another hooted.

“No balls to your pistol, lad?” jibed his accomplice on the floor.

Jamie squinted dubiously at his equipment, bringing on a fresh riot of howls and catcalls. Then his face cleared.

“Ha! My chamber’s empty, that’s all!” He snaked an arm toward the array of bottles on the wall, cocked an eyebrow at me, and when I nodded, took one down and upended it over his open mouth. The water splashed over his chin and onto his shirt, and his Adam’s apple bobbed theatrically as he drank.

“Ahhh.” He lowered the bottle, swabbed some of the grime from his face with a sleeve, and bowed to his audience.

“Now, then,” he began, reaching down. He caught sight of my face, though, and stopped in mid-motion. He couldn’t see the open door at his back, nor the man standing in it, but the sudden quiet that fell upon the room must have told him that all bets were off.

His Highness Prince Charles Edward bent his head under the lintel to enter the cottage. Come to visit the wounded, he was dressed for the occasion in plum velvet breeches with stockings to match, immaculate linen, and – to show solidarity with the troops, no doubt – a coat and waistcoat in Cameron tartan, with a subsidiary plaid looped over one shoulder through a cairngorm brooch. His hair was freshly powdered, and the Order of St. Andrew glittered brilliantly upon his breast.

He stood in the doorway, nobly inspiring everyone in sight and noticeably impeding the entrance of those behind him. He looked slowly about him, taking in the twenty-five men crammed cheek by jowl on the floor, the helpers crouching over them, the mess of bloodied dressings tossed into the corner, the scatter of medicines and instruments across the table, and me, standing behind it.

His Highness didn’t care overmuch for women with the army in general, but he was thoroughly grounded in the rules of courtesy. I was a woman, despite the smears of blood and vomit that streaked my skirt, and the fact that my hair was shooting out from under my kertch in half a dozen random sprays.

“Madame Fraser,” he said, bowing graciously to me.

“Your Highness.” I bobbed a curtsy back, hoping he didn’t intend to stay long.

“Your labors in our behalf are very much appreciate, Madame,” he said, his soft Italian accent stronger than usual.

“Er, thank you,” I said. “Mind the blood. It’s slippery just there.”

The delicate mouth tightened a bit as he skirted the puddle I had pointed out. The doorway freed, Sheridan, O’Sullivan, and Lord Balmerino came in, adding to the congestion in the cottage. Now that the demands of courtesy had been attended to, Charles crouched carefully between two pallets.

He laid a gentle hand on the shoulder of one man.

“What is your name, my brave fellow?”

“Gilbert Munro… erm, Your Highness,” added the man, hastily, awed at the sight of the Prince.

The manicured fingers touched the bandage and splints that swathed what was left of Gilbert Munro’s right arm.

“Your sacrifice was great, Gilbert Munro,” Charles said simply. “I promise you it will not be forgotten.” The hand brushed across a whiskered cheek, and Munro reddened with embarassed pleasure.

I had a man before me with a scalp wound that needed stitching, but was able to watch from the corner of my eye as Charles made the rounds of the cottage. Moving slowly, he went from bed to bed, missing no one, stopping to inquire each man’s name and home, to offer thanks and affection, congratulations, and condolence.

The men were stunned into silence, English and Highlander alike, barely managing to answer His Highness in soft murmurs. At last he stood and stretched, with an audible creaking of ligaments. An end of his plaid had trailed in the mud, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I bring you the blessing and the thanks of my Father,” he said. “Your deeds of today will always be remembered.” The men on the floor were not in the proper mood to cheer, but there were smiles, and a general murmur of appreciation.

Turning to go, Charles caught sight of Jamie, standing out of the way in the corner, so as not to have his bare toes trampled by Sheridan’s boots. His Highness’s face lighted with pleasure.

“Mon cher! I had not seen you today. I feared some malchance had overtaken you.” A look of reproach crossed the handsome, ruddy face. “Why did you not come to supper at the manse with the other officers?”

Jamie smiled and bowed respectfully.

“My men are here, Highness.”

The Prince’s brows shot up at this, and he opened his mouth as though to say something, but Lord Balmerino stepped forward and whispered something in his ear. Charles’s expression changed to one of concern.

“But what this is I hear?” he said to Jamie, losing control of his syntax as he did in moments of emotion. “His Lordship tells me that you have yourself suffered a wound.”

Jamie looked mildly discomfited. He shot a quick glance my way, to see if I had heard, and seeing that I most certainly had, jerked his eyes back to the Prince.

“It’s nothing, Highness. Only a scratch.”

“Show me.” It was simply spoken, but unmistakably an order, and the stained plaid fell away without protest.

The folds of dark tartan were nearly black on the inner side. His shirt beneath was reddened from armpit to hip, with stiff brown patches where the blood had begun to dry.

Leaving my head injury to mind himself for a moment, I stepped forward and opened the shirt, pulling it gently away from the injured side. Despite the quantity of blood, I knew it must not be a serious wound; he stood like a rock, and the blood no longer flowed.

It was a saber-slash, slanting across the ribs. A lucky angle; straight in and it would have gone deep into the intercostal muscles between the ribs. As it was, an eight-inch flap of skin gaped loose, red beginning to ooze beneath it again with the release of pressure. It would take a goodly number of stitches to repair, but aside from the constant danger of infection, the wound was in no way serious.

Turning to report this to His Highness, I halted, stopped by the odd look on his face. For a split second, I thought it was “rookie’s tremors,” the shock of a person unaccustomed to the sight of wounds and blood. Many a trainee nurse at the combat station had removed a field dressing, taken one look and bolted, to vomit quietly outside before returning to tend the patient. Battle wounds have a peculiarly nasty look to them.

But it couldn’t be that. By no means a natural warrior, still Charles had been blooded, like Jamie, at the age of fourteen, in his first battle at Gaeta. No, I decided, even as the momentary expression of shock faded from the soft brown eyes. He would not be startled by blood or wounds.

This wasn’t a cottar or a herder that stood before him. Not a nameless subject, whose duty was to fight for the Stuart cause. This was a friend. And I thought that perhaps Jamie’s wound had suddenly brought it home to him; that blood was shed on his order, men wounded for his cause – little wonder if the realization struck him, deep as a sword-cut.

He looked at Jamie’s side for a long moment, then looked up to meet his eyes. He grasped Jamie by the hand, and bowed his own head.

“Thank you,” he said softly.

And just for that one moment, I thought perhaps he might have made a king, after all.

On a small slope behind the church, a tent had been erected at His Highness’s order, for the last shelter of those dead in battle. Given preference in treatment, the English soldiers received none here; the men lay in rows, cloths covering their faces, Highlanders distinguished only by their dress, all awaiting burial on the morrow. MacDonald of Keppoch had brought a French priest with him; the man, shoulders sagging with weariness, purple stole worn incongruously over a stained Highland plaid, moved slowly through the tent, pausing to pray at the foot of each recumbent figure.

“Perpetual rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.” He crossed himself mechanically, and moved on to another corpse.

I had seen the tent earlier, and – heart in mouth – counted the bodies of the Highland dead. Twenty-two. Now, as I entered the tent, I found the toll had risen to twenty-six.

A twenty-seventh lay in the nearby church, on the last mile of his journey. Alexander Kincaid Fraser, dying slowly of the wounds that riddled his belly and chest, of a slow internal seepage that couldn’t be halted. I had seen him when they brought him in, bleached white from an afternoon of bleeding slowly to death, alone in the field among the bodies of his foes.

He had tried to smile at me, and I had wetted his cracked lips with water and coated them with tallow. To give him a drink was to kill him at once, as the liquid would rush through his perforated intestines and cause fatal shock. I hesitated, seeing the seriousness of his wounds, and thinking that a quick death might be better… but then I had stopped. I realized that he would want to see a priest and make his confession, at least. And so I had dispatched him to the church, where Father Benin tended the dying as I tended the living.

Jamie had made short visits to the church every half-hour or so, but Kincaid held his own for an amazingly long time, clinging to life despite the constant ebbing of its substance. But Jamie had not come back from his latest visit. I knew that the fight was ending now at last, and went to see if I could help.

The space under the windows where Kincaid had lain was empty, save for a large, dark stain. He wasn’t in the tent of the dead, either, and neither was Jamie anywhere in sight.

I found them at length some distance up the hill behind the church. Jamie was sitting on a rock, the form of Alexander Kincaid cradled in his arms, curly head resting on his shoulder, the long, hairy legs trailing limp to one side. Both were still as the rock on which they sat. Still as death, though only one was dead.

I touched the white, slack hand, to be sure, and rested my hand on the thick brown hair, feeling still so incongruously alive. A man should not die a virgin, but this one did.

“He’s gone, Jamie,” I whispered.

He didn’t move for a moment, but then nodded, opening his eyes as though reluctant to face the realities of the night.

“I know. He died soon after I brought him out, but I didna want to let him go.”

I took the shoulders and we lowered him gently to the ground. It was grassy here, and the night wind stirred the stems around him, brushing them lightly across his face, a welcome to the caress of the earth.

“You didn’t want him to die under a roof,” I said, understanding. The sky swept over us, cozy with cloud, but endless in its promise of refuge.

He nodded slowly, then knelt by the body and kissed the wide, pale forehead.

“I would have someone do the same for me,” he said softly. He drew a fold of the plaid up over the brown curls, and murmured something in Gaelic that I didn’t understand.

A medical casualties station is no place for tears; there is much too much to be done. I had not wept all day, despite the things I had seen, but now gave way, if only for a moment. I leaned my face against Jamie’s shoulder for strength, and he patted me briefly. When I looked up, wiping the tears from my face, I saw him still staring, dry-eyed, at the quiet figure on the ground. He felt me watching him and looked down at me.

“I wept for him while he was still alive to know it, Sassenach,” he said quietly. “Now, how is it in the house?”

I sniffed, wiped my nose, and took his arm as we turned back to the cottage.

“I need your help with one.”

“Which is it?”

“Hamish MacBeth.”

Jamie’s face, strained for so many hours, relaxed a bit under the stains and smudges.

“He’s back, then? I’m glad. How bad is he, though?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ll see.”

MacBeth was one of Jamie’s favorites. A massive man with a curly brown beard and a reticent manner, he had been always there within Jamie’s call, ready when something was needed on the journey. Seldom speaking, he had a slow, shy smile that blossomed out of his beard like a night-blooming flower, rare but radiant.

I knew the big man’s absence after the battle had been worrying Jamie, even among the other details and stresses. As the day wore on and the stragglers came back one by one, I had been keeping an eye out for MacBeth. But sundown came and the fires sprang up amid the army camp, with no Hamish MacBeth, and I had begun to fear we would find him among the dead, too.

But he had come into the casualties station half an hour before, moving slowly, but under his own power. One leg was stained with blood down to the ankle, and he walked with a ginger, spraddled gait, but he would on no account let a “wumman” lay hands on him to see what was the matter.

The big man was lying on a blanket near a lantern, hands clasped across the swell of his belly, eyes fastened patiently on the raftered ceiling. He swiveled his eyes around as Jamie knelt down beside him, but didn’t move otherwise. I lingered tactfully in the background, hidden from view by Jamie’s broad back.

“All right, then, MacBeth,” said Jamie, laying a hand on the thick wrist in greeting. “How is it, man?”

“I’ll do, sir,” the giant rumbled. “I’ll do. Just that it’s a bit…” He hesitated.

“Well, then, let’s have a look at it.” MacBeth made no protest as Jamie flipped back the edge of the kilt. Peeking through a crack between Jamie’s arm and body, I could see the cause of MacBeth’s hesitations.

A sword or pike had caught him high in the groin and ripped its way downward. The scrotum was torn jaggedly on one side, and one testicle hung halfway out, its smooth pink surface shiny as a peeled egg.

Jamie and the two or three other men who saw the wound turned pale, and I saw one of the aides touch himself reflexively, as though to assure that his own parts were unscathed.

Despite the horrid look of the wound, the testicle itself seemed undamaged, and there was no excessive bleeding. I touched Jamie on the shoulder and shook my head to signify that the wound was not serious, no matter what its effect on the male psyche. Catching my gesture with the tail of his eye, Jamie patted MacBeth on the knee.

“Och, it’s none so bad, MacBeth. Nay worry, ye’ll be a father yet.”

The big man had been looking down apprehensively, but at these words, transferred his gaze to his commander. “Weel, that’s no such a consairn to me, sir, me already havin’ the six bairns. It’s just what my wife’d say, if I…” MacBeth blushed crimson as the men surrounding him laughed and hooted.

Casting an eye back at me for confirmation, Jamie suppressed his own grin and said firmly, “That’ll be all right, too, MacBeth.”

“Thank ye, sir,” the man breathed gratefully, with complete trust in his commander’s assurance.

“Still,” Jamie went on briskly, “it’ll need to be stitched up, man. Now, ye’ve your choice about that.”

He reached into the open kit for one of my handmade suture needles. Appalled by the crude objects barber-surgeons customarily used to sew up their customers, I’d made three dozen of my own, by selecting the finest embroidery needles I could get, and heating them in forceps over the flame of an alcohol lamp, bending them gently until I had the proper half-moon curve needed for stitching severed tissues. Likewise, I’d made my own catgut sutures; a messy, disgusting business, but at least I was sure of the sterility of my materials.

The tiny suture needle looked ridiculous, pinched between Jamie’s large thumb and index finger. The illusion of medical competence was not furthered by Jamie’s cross-eyed attempts to thread the needle.

“Either I’ll do it myself,” he said, tongue-tip protruding slightly in his concentration, “or-” He broke off as he dropped the needle and fumbled about in the folds of MacBeth’s plaid for it. “Or,” he resumed, holding it up triumphantly before his patient’s apprehensive eyes, “my wife can do it for ye.” A slight jerk of the head summoned me into view. I did my best to look as matter-of-fact as possible, taking the needle from Jamie’s incompetent grasp and threading it neatly with one thrust.

MacBeth’s large brown eyes traveled slowly between Jamie’s big paws, which he contrived to make look as clumsy as possible by setting the crooked right hand atop the left, and my own small, swift hands. At last he lay back with a dismal sigh, and mumbled his consent to let a “wumman” lay hands on his private parts.

“Dinna worry yourself, man,” Jamie said, patting him companionably on the shoulder. “After all, she’s had the handling of my own for some time now, and she’s not unmanned me yet.” Amid the laughter of the aides and nearby patients, he started to rise, but I stopped him by thrusting a small flask into his hands.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Alcohol and water,” I said. “Disinfectant solution. If he’s not to have fever or pustulence or something worse, the wound will have to be washed out.” MacBeth had plainly walked some way from where the injury had occurred, and there were smears of dirt as well as blood near the wound. Grain alcohol was a harsh disinfectant, even cut 50/50 with distilled sterile water as I used it. Still, it was the single most effective tool I had against infection, and I was adamant about its usage, in spite of complaints from the aides and screams of anguish from the patients who were subjected to it.

Jamie glanced from the alcohol flask to the gaping wound and shuddered slightly. He’d had his own dose when I stitched his side, earlier in the evening.

“Weel, MacBeth, better you than me,” he said, and, placing his knee firmly in the man’s midriff, sloshed the contents of the flask over the exposed tissues.

A dreadful roar shook the walls, and MacBeth writhed like a cut snake. When the noise at last subsided, his face had gone a mottled greenish color, and he made no objection at all as I began the routine, if painful, job of stitching up the scrotum. Most of the patients, even those horribly wounded, were stoic about the primitive treatment to which we subjected them, and MacBeth was no exception. He lay unmoving in hideous embarrassment, eyes fixed on the lantern flame, and didn’t move a muscle as I made my repairs. Only the changing colors of his face, from green to white to red and back again, betrayed his emotions.

At the last, however, he went purple. As I finished the stitching, the limp penis began to stiffen slightly, brushed in passing by my hand. Thoroughly rattled by this justification of his faith in Jamie’s word, MacBeth snatched down his kilts the instant I was finished, lurched to his feet, and staggered away into the darkness, leaving me giggling over my kit.

I found a corner where a chest of medical supplies made a seat, and leaned against the wall. A surge of pain shot up my calves; the sudden release of tension, and the nerves’ reaction to it. I slipped off my shoes and leaned back against the wall, reveling in the smaller spasms that shot up backbone and neck as the strain of standing was relieved.

Every square inch of skin seems newly sensitive in such a state of fatigue; when the necessity of forcing the body to perform is suddenly suspended, the lingering impetus seems to force the blood to the perimeter of the body, as though the nervous system is reluctant to believe what the muscles have already gratefully accepted; you need not move, just now.

The air in the cottage was warm and noisy with breathing; not the healthy racket of snoring men, but the shallow gasps of men for whom breathing hurts, and the moans of those who have found a temporary oblivion that frees them from the manly obligation of suffering in silence.

The men in this cottage were those badly wounded, but in no immediate danger. I knew, though, that death walks at night in the aisles of a sick ward, searching for those whose defenses are lowered, who may stray unwittingly into its path through loneliness and fear. Some of the wounded had wives who slept next to them, to comfort them in the dark, but none in this cottage.

They had me. If I could do little to heal them or stop their pain, I could at least let them know that they didn’t lie alone; that someone stood here, between them and the shadow. Beyond anything I could do, it was my job only to be there.

I rose and made my way slowly once again through the pallets on the floor, stooping at each one, murmuring and touching, straightening a blanket, smoothing tangled hair, rubbing the knots that form in cramped limbs. A sip of water here, a change of dressing there, the reading of an attitude of tense embarrassment that meant a urinal was needed, and the matter-of-fact presentation that allowed the man to ease himself, the stone bottle growing warm and heavy in my hand.

I stepped outdoors to empty one of these, and paused for a moment, gathering the cool, rainy night to myself, letting the soft moisture wipe away the touch of coarse, hairy skin and the smell of sweating men.

“Ye dinna sleep much, Sassenach.” The soft Scottish voice came from the direction of the road. The other hospital cottages lay in that direction; the officers’ quarters, the other way, in the village manse.

“You dinna sleep much, either,” I responded dryly. How long had he gone without sleep? I wondered.

“I slept in the field last night, with the men.”

“Oh, yes? Very restful,” I said, with an edge that made him laugh. Six hours’ sleep in a wet field, followed by a battle in which he’d been stepped on by a horse, wounded by a sword, and done God knows what else. Then he had gathered his men, collected the wounded, tended the hurt, mourned his dead, and served his Prince. And through none of it had I seen him pause for food, drink, or rest.

I didn’t bother scolding. It wasn’t even worth mentioning that he ought to have been among the patients on the floor. It was his job to be here, as well.

“There are other women, Sassenach,” he said gently. “Shall I have Archie Cameron send someone down?”

It was a temptation, but one I pushed away before I could think about it too long, for fear that if I acknowledged my fatigue, I would never move again.

I stretched, hands against the small of my back.

“No,” I said. “I’ll manage ’til the dawn. Then someone else can take over for a time.” Somehow I felt that I must get them through the night; at dawn they would be safe.

He didn’t scold, either; just laid a hand on my shoulder and drew me to lean against him for a moment. We shared what strength we had, unspeaking.

“I’ll stay with ye, then,” he said, drawing away at last. “I canna sleep before light, myself.”

“The other men from Lallybroch?”

He moved his head toward the fields near the town where the army was camped.

“Murtagh’s in charge.”

“Oh, well, then. Nothing to worry about,” I said, and saw him smile in the light from the window. There was a bench outside the cottage, where the goodwife would sit on sunny days to clean fish or mend clothes. I drew him down to sit beside me, and he sagged back against the wall of the house with a sigh. His patent exhaustion reminded me of Fergus, and the boy’s expression of confused bewilderment after the battle.

I reached to caress the back of Jamie’s neck, and he turned his head blindly toward me, resting his brow against my own.

“How was it, Jamie?” I asked softly, fingers rubbing hard and slow over the tight-ridged muscles of his neck and shoulders. “What was it like? Tell me.”

There was a short silence, then he sighed, and began to talk, haltingly at first, and then faster, as if wanting to get it out.

“We had no fire, for Lord George thought we must move off the ridge before daylight, and wanted no hint of movement to be seen below. We sat in the dark for a time. Couldna even talk, for the sound would carry to the plain. So we sat.

“Then I felt something grab my thigh in the dark, and near jumped out of my skin.” He inserted a finger in his mouth and rubbed gingerly. “Nearly bit my tongue off.” I felt the shift of his muscles as he smiled, though his face was hidden.

“Fergus?”

The ghost of a laugh floated through the dark.

“Aye, Fergus. Crawled through the grass on his belly, the little bastard, and I thought he was a snake, at that. He whispered to me about Anderson, and I crawled off after him and took Anderson to see Lord George.”

His voice was slow and dreamy, talking under the spell of my touch.

“And then the order came that we’d move, following Anderson’s trail. And the whole of the army got to its feet, and set off in the dark.”

The night was clear black and moonless, without the usual cover of cloud that trapped starlight and diffused it toward the earth. As the Highland army made its way in silence down the narrow path behind Richard Anderson, each man could see no farther than the shuffling heels of the man before him, each step widening the trodden path through wet grass.

The army moved almost without noise. Orders were relayed in murmurs from man to man, not shouted. Broadswords and axes were muffled in the folds of their plaids, powder flasks tucked inside shirts against fast-beating hearts.

Once on sound footing, still in total silence, the Highlanders sat down, made themselves as comfortable as was possible without fire, ate what cold rations there were, and composed themselves to rest, wrapped in their plaids, in sight of the enemy’s campfires.

“We could hear them talking,” Jamie said. His eyes were closed, hands clasped behind his head, as he leaned against the cottage wall. “Odd, to hear men laughing over a jest, or asking for a pinch of salt or a turn at the wineskin – and know that in a few hours, ye may kill them – or them you. Ye can’t help wondering, ye ken; what does the face behind that voice look like? Will you know the fellow if ye meet him in the morning?”

Still, the tremors of anticipated battle were no match for sheer fatigue, and the “Black Frasers” – so called for the traces of charcoal that still adorned their features – and their chief had been awake for more than thirty-six hours by then. He had picked a sheaf of marrow-grass for a pillow, tucked the plaid around his shoulders, and lain down in the waving grass beside his men.

During his time with the French army, years before, one of the sergeants had explained to the younger mercenaries the trick of falling asleep the night before a battle.

“Make yourself comfortable, examine your conscience, and make a good Act of Contrition. Father Hugo says that in time of war, even if there is no priest to shrive you, your sins can be forgiven this way. Since you cannot commit sins while asleep – not even you, Simenon! – you will awake in a state of grace, ready to fall on the bastards. And with nothing to look forward to but victory or heaven – how can you be afraid?”

While privately noting a few flaws in this argument, Jamie had found it still good advice; freeing the conscience eased the soul, and the comforting repetition of prayer distracted the mind from fearful imaginings and lulled it toward sleep.

He gazed upward into the black vault of the sky, and willed the tightness of neck and shoulders to relax into the ground’s hard embrace. The stars were faint and hazy tonight, no match for the nearby glow of the English fires.

His mind reached out to the men around him, resting briefly on each, one by one. The stain of sin was small weight on his conscience, compared with these. Ross, McMurdo, Kincaid, Kent, McClure… he paused to give brief thanks that his wife and the boy Fergus at least were safe. His mind lingered on his wife, wanting to bask in the memory of her reassuring smile, the solid, wonderful warmth of her in his arms, pressed tight against him as he had kissed her goodbye that afternoon. Despite his own weariness and the waiting presence of Lord George outside, he had wanted to tumble her onto the waiting mattress right then and take her quickly, at once, without undressing. Strange how the imminence of fighting made him so ready, always. Even now…

But he hadn’t yet finished his mental roster, and he felt his eyelids closing already, as tiredness sought to pull him under. He dismissed the faint tightening of his testicles that came at thought of her, and resumed his roll call, a shepherd treacherously lulled to sleep by counting the sheep he was leading to slaughter.

But it wouldn’t be a slaughter, he tried to reassure himself. Light casualties for the Jacobite side. Thirty men killed. Out of two thousand, only a slim chance that some of the Lallybroch men would be among that number, surely? If she was right.

He shuddered faintly under the plaid, and fought down the momentary doubt that wrenched his bowels. If. God, if. Still he had trouble believing it, though he had seen her by that cursed rock, face dissolving in terror around the panic-wide gold eyes, the very outlines of her body blurring as he, panicked also, had clutched at her, pulling her back, feeling little more than the frail double bone of her forearm under his hand. Perhaps he should have let her go, back to her own place. No, no perhaps. He knew that he should. But he had pulled her back. Given her the choice, but kept her with him by the sheer force of his wanting her. And so she had stayed. And given him the choice – to believe her, or not. To act, or to run. And the choice was made now, and no power on earth could stop the dawn from coming.

His heart beat heavily, pulse echoing in wrists and groin and the pit of his stomach. He sought to calm it, resuming his count, one name to each heartbeat. Willie McNab, Bobby McNab, Geordie McNab… thank God, young Rabbie McNab was safe, left at home… Will Fraser, Ewan Fraser, Geoffrey McClure… McClure… had he touched on both George and Sorley? Shifted slightly, smiling faintly, feeling for the soreness left along his ribs. Murtagh. Aye, Murtagh, tough old boot… my mind is no troubled on your account, at least. William Murray, Rufus Murray, Geordie, Wallace, Simon…

And at last, had closed his eyes, commended all of them to the care of the black sky above, and lost himself in the murmured words that came to him still most naturally in French – “Mon Dieu, je regrette…”

I made my rounds inside the cottage, changing a blood-soaked dressing on one man’s leg. The bleeding should have stopped by now, but it hadn’t. Poor nutrition and brittle bones. If the bleeding hadn’t stopped before cockcrow, I would have to fetch Archie Cameron or one of the farrier-surgeons to amputate the leg, and cauterize the stump.

I hated the thought of it. Life was sufficiently hard for a man with all his limbs in good working order. Hoping for the best, I coated the new dressing with a light sprinkling of alum and sulfur. If it didn’t help, it wouldn’t hinder. Likely it would hurt, but that couldn’t be helped.

“It will burn a bit,” I murmured to the man, as I wrapped his leg in the layers of cloth.

“Dinna worry yourself, Mistress,” he whispered. He smiled at me, in spite of the sweat that ran down his cheeks, shiny in the light of my candle. “I’ll stand it.”

“Good.” I patted his shoulder, smoothed the hair off his brow, and gave him a drink of water. “I’ll check again in an hour, if you can bear it that long.”

“I’ll stand it,” he said again.

Outside once more, I thought Jamie had fallen asleep. His face rested on his folded forearms, crossed on his knees. But he looked up at the sound of my step, and took my hand as I sat beside him.

“I heard the cannon at dawn,” I said, thinking of the man inside, leg broken by a cannonball. “I was afraid for you.”

He laughed softly. “So was I, Sassenach. So were we all.”

Quiet as wisps of mist, the Highlanders advanced through the sea grass, one foot at a time. There was no sense of darkness lessening, but the feel of the night had changed. The wind had changed, that was it; it blew from the sea over the cold dawning land, and the faint thunder of waves on distant sand could be heard.

Despite his impression of continued dark, the light was coming. He saw the man at his feet just in time; one more step and he would have been headlong across the man’s curled body.

Heart pounding from the shock of the near-meeting, he dropped to his haunches to get a better look. A Redcoat, and sleeping, not dead or wounded. He squinted hard into the darkness around them, willing his ears to listen for the breathing of other sleeping men. Nothing but sea sounds, grass and wind sounds, the tiny swish of stealthy feet almost hidden in their muted roar.

He glanced hastily back, licking lips gone dry despite the moist air. There were men close behind him; he dared not hesitate long. The next man might not be so careful where he stepped, and they could risk no outcry.

He set hand to his dirk, but hesitated. War was war, but it went against the grain to slay a sleeping enemy. The man seemed to be alone, some distance from his companions. Not a sentinel; not even the slackest of guards would sleep, knowing the Highlanders to be camped on the ridge above. Perhaps the soldier had gotten up to relieve himself, thoughtfully come some distance from his fellows to do it, then, losing his direction in the dark, lain down to sleep where he was.

The metal of his musket was slick from his sweating palm. He rubbed his hand on his plaid, then stood, grasped the barrel of the musket, and swung the butt in a vicious arc, down and around. The shock of impact jolted him to the shoulder blades; an immobile head is solid. The man’s arms had flown out with the force of the impact, but beyond an explosion of breath, he had made no noise, and now lay sprawled on his face, limp as a clout.

Palms tingling, he stooped again and groped beneath the man’s jaw, looking for a pulse. He found one, and reassured, stood up. There was a muffled cry of startlement from behind, and he swung around, musket already at his shoulder, to find its barrel poking into the face of one of Keppoch’s MacDonald clansmen.

“Mon Dieu!” the man whispered, crossing himself, and Jamie clenched his teeth with aggravation. It was Keppoch’s bloody French priest, dressed, at O’Sullivan’s suggestion, in shirt and plaid like the fighting men.

“The man insisted that it was his duty to bring the sacraments to the wounded and dying on the field,” Jamie explained to me, hitching his stained plaid higher on his shoulder. The night was growing colder. “O’Sullivan’s idea was that if the English caught him on the battlefield in his cassock, they’d tear him to pieces. As to that, maybe so, maybe no. But he looked a right fool in a plaid,” he added censoriously.

Nor had the priest’s behavior done anything to ameliorate the impression caused by his attire. Realizing belatedly that his assailant was a Scot, he had sighed in relief, and then opened his mouth. Moving quickly, Jamie had clapped a hand over it before any ill-advised questions could emerge.

“What are ye doing here, Father?” he growled, mouth pressed to the priest’s ear. “You’re meant to be behind the lines.”

A widening of the priest’s eyes at this told Jamie the truth – the man of God, lost in the darkness, had thought he was behind the lines, and the belated realization that he was, in fact, in the vanguard of the advancing Highlanders, made him buckle slightly at the knees.

Jamie glanced backward; he didn’t dare send the priest back through the lines. In the misty dark, he could easily stumble into an advancing Highlander, be mistaken for an enemy, and be killed on the spot. Gripping the smaller man by the back of the neck, he pushed him to his knees.

“Lie flat and stay that way until the firing stops,” he hissed into the man’s ear. The priest nodded frantically, then suddenly saw the body of the English soldier, lying on the ground a few feet away. He glanced up at Jamie in awed horror, and reached for the bottles of chrism and holy water that he wore at his belt in lieu of a dirk.

Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Jamie made a series of violent motions, meant to indicate that the man was not dead, and thus in no need of the priest’s services. These failing to make their point, he bent, seized the priest’s hand, and pressed the fingers on the Englishman’s neck, as the simplest method of illustrating that the man was not in fact the first victim of the battle. Caught in this ludicrous position, he froze as a voice cut through the mist behind him.

“Halt!” it said. “Who goes there?”

“Have ye got a bit of water, Sassenach?” asked Jamie. “I’m gettin’ a bit dry with the talking.”

“Bastard!” I said. “You can’t stop there! What happened?”

“Water,” he said, grinning, “and I’ll tell ye.”

“All right,” I said, handing him a water bottle and watching as he tilted it into his mouth. “What happened then?”

“Nothing,” he said, lowering the bottle and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “What did ye think, I was going to answer him?” He grinned impudently at me and ducked as I aimed a slap at his ear.

“Now, now,” he reproved. “No way to treat a man wounded in the service of his King, now is it?”

“Wounded, are you?” I said. “Believe me, Jamie Fraser, a mere saber slash is as nothing compared to what I will do to you if…”

“Oh, threats, too, is it? What was that poem ye told me about, ‘When pain and anguish wring the brow, a ministering angel’… ow!”

“Next time, I twist it right off at the roots,” I said, releasing the ear. “Get on with it, I have to go back in a minute.”

He rubbed the ear gingerly, but leaned back against the wall and resumed his story.

“Well, we just sat there on our haunches, the padre and I, staring at each other and listening to the sentries six feet away. “What’s that?” says the one, and me thinking can I get up in time to take him with my dirk before he shoots me in the back, and what about his friend? For I canna expect help from the priest, unless maybe it’s a last prayer over my body.”

There was a long, nerve-racking silence, as the two Jacobites squatted in the grass, hands still clasped, afraid to move enough even to let go.

“Ahhh, yer seein’ things,” came from the other sentry at last, and Jamie felt the shudder of relief run through the priest, as his damp fingers slid free. “Nothin’ up there but furze bushes. Never mind, lad,” the sentry said reassuringly, and Jamie heard the clap of a hand on a shoulder and the stamp of booted feet, trying to keep warm. “There’s the damn lot of ’em, sure, and in this dark, they could be the whole bloody Highland army, for all you can see.” Jamie thought he heard the breath of a smothered laugh from one of the “furze bushes,” on the hillside within hearing.

He glanced at the crest of the hill, where the stars were beginning to dim. Less than ten minutes to first light, he judged. At which point, Johnnie Cope’s troops would swiftly realize that the Highland army was not, as they thought, an hour’s march away in the opposite direction, but already face-to-face with their front lines.

There was a noise to the left, in the direction of the sea. It was faint, and indistinct, but the note of alarm was clear to battle-trained ears. Someone, he supposed, had tripped over a furze bush.

“Hey?” The note of alarm was taken up by one of the sentries nearby. “What’s happening?”

The priest would have to take care of himself, he thought. Jamie drew the broadsword as he rose, and with one long step, was within reach. The man was no more than a shape in the darkness, but distinct enough. The merciless blade smashed down with all his strength, and split the man’s skull where he stood.

“Highlanders!” The shriek broke from the man’s companion, and the second sentry sprang out like a rabbit flushed from a copse, bounding away into the fading dark before Jamie could free his weapon from its gory cleft. He put a foot on the fallen man’s back and jerked, gritting his teeth against the unpleasant sensation of slack flesh and grating bone.

Alarm was spreading up and down the English lines; he could feel as much as hear it – an agitation of men rudely wakened, groping blindly for weapons, searching in all directions for the unseen threat.

Clanranald’s pipers were behind to the right, but no signal as yet came for the charge. Continue the advance, then, heart pounding and left arm tingling from the death blow, belly muscles clenched and eyes straining through the waning dark, the spray of warm blood across his face going cold and sticky in the chill.

“I could hear them first,” he said, staring off into the night as though still searching for the English soldiers. He bent forward, hugging his knees. “Then I could see, too. The English, wriggling over the ground like maggots in meat, and the men behind me. George McClure came up with me, and Wallace and Ross on the other side, and we were walkin’ still, one pace at a time, but faster and faster, seein’ the sassenaches breaking before us.”

There was a dull boom off to the right; the firing of a single cannon. A moment later, another, and then, as though this were the signal, a wavering cry rose from the oncoming Highlanders.

“The pipes started then,” he said, eyes closed. “I didna remember my musket ’til I heard one fire close behind me; I’d left it in the grass next to the priest. When it’s like that, ye dinna see anything but the small bit that’s happening round you.

“Ye hear a shout, and of a sudden, you’re running. Slow, for a step or two, while ye free your belt, and then your plaid falls free and you’re bounding, wi’ your feet splashing mud up your legs and the chill of the wet grass on your feet, and your shirttails flying off your bare arse. The wind blows into your shirt and up your belly and out along your arms… Then the noise takes ye and you’re screaming, like runnin’ down a hill yelling into the wind when you’re a bairn, to see can ye lift yourself on the sound.”

They rode the waves of their own shrieking onto the plain, and the force of the Highland charge crashed onto the shoals of the English army, smothering them in a boiling surge of blood and terror.

“They ran,” he said softly. “One man stood to face me – all during the fight, only one. The others I took from behind.” He rubbed a grimy hand over his face, and I could feel a fine tremor start somewhere deep inside him.

“I remember… everything,” he said, almost whispering. “Every blow. Every face. The man lying on the ground in front of me who wet himself wi’ fear. The horses screaming. All the stinks – black powder and blood and the smell of my own sweat. Everything. But it’s like I was standin’ outside, watching myself. I wasna really there.” He opened his eyes and looked sidelong at me. He was bent almost double, head on his knees, the shivering visible now.

“D’ye know?” he asked.

“I know.”

While I hadn’t fought with sword or knife, I had fought often enough with hands and will; getting through the chaos of death only because there is no other choice. And it did leave behind that odd feeling of detachment; the brain seemed to rise above the body, coldly judging and directing, the viscera obediently subdued until the crisis passed. It was always sometime later that the shaking started.

I hadn’t reached that point yet. I slid the cloak from my shoulders and covered him before going back into the cottage.

The dawn came, and relief with it, in the person of two village women and an army surgeon. The man with the wounded leg was pale and shaky, but the bleeding had stopped. Jamie took me by the arm and led me away, down the street of Tranent.

O’Sullivan’s constant difficulties with the commissary had been temporarily relieved by the captured wagons, and there was food in plenty. We ate quickly, scarcely tasting the hot porridge, aware of food only as a bodily necessity, like breathing. The feeling of nourishment began to creep through my body, freeing me to think of the next most pressing need – sleep.

Wounded men were quartered in every house and cottage, the sound of body mostly sleeping in the fields outside. While Jamie could have claimed a place in the manse with the other officers, he instead took my arm and turned me aside, heading between the cottages and up a hill, into one of the scattered small groves that lay outside Tranent.

“It’s a bit of a walk,” he said apologetically, looking down at me, “but I thought perhaps ye’d rather be private.”

“I would.” While I had been raised under conditions that would strike most people of my time as primitive – often living in tents and mud houses on Uncle Lamb’s field expeditions – still, I wasn’t used to living crowded cheek by jowl with numbers of other people, as was customary here. People ate, slept, and frequently copulated, crammed into tiny, stifling cottages, lit and warmed by smoky peat fires. The only thing they didn’t do together was bathe – largely because they didn’t bathe.

Jamie led the way under the drooping limbs of a huge horse chestnut, and into a small clearing, thick with the fallen leaves of ash, alder, and sycamore. The sun was barely up, and it was still cold under the trees, a faint edge of frost rimming some of the yellowed leaves.

He scraped a rough trench in the layer of leaves with one heel, then stood at one end of the hollow, set his hand to the buckle of his belt, and smiled at me.

“It’s a bit undignified to get into, but it’s verra easy to take off.” He jerked the belt loose, and his plaid dropped around his ankles, leaving him clad to mid-thigh in only his shirt. He usually wore the military “little kilt,” which buckled about the waist, with the plaid a separate strip of cloth around the shoulders. But now, his own kilt rent and stained from the battle, he had acquired one of the older belted plaids – nothing more than a long strip of cloth, tucked about the waist and held in place with no fastening but a belt.

“How do you get into it?” I asked curiously.

“Well, ye lay it out on the ground, like this” – he knelt, spreading the cloth so that it lined the leaf-strewn hollow – “and then ye pleat it every few inches, lie down on it, and roll.”

I burst out laughing, and sank to my knees, helping to smooth the thick tartan wool.

“That, I want to see,” I told him. “Wake me up before you get dressed.”

He shook his head good-naturedly, and the sunlight filtering through the leaves glinted off his hair.

“Sassenach, the chances of me wakin’ before you do are less than those of a worm in a henyard. I dinna care if another horse steps on me, I’ll no be moving ’til tomorrow.” He lay down carefully, pushing back the leaves.

“Come lie wi’ me.” He extended an inviting hand upward. “We’ll cover ourselves with your cloak.”

The leaves beneath the smooth wool made a surprisingly comfortable mattress, though at this point I would cheerfully have slept on a bed of nails. I relaxed bonelessly against him, reveling in the exquisite delight of simply lying down.

The initial chill faded quickly as our bodies warmed the pocket where we lay. We were far enough from the town that the sounds of its occupation reached us only in wind-borne snatches, and I thought with drowsy satisfaction that it might well be tomorrow before anyone looking for Jamie found us.

I had removed my petticoats and torn them up for additional bandages the night before, and there was nothing between us but the thin fabric of skirt and shirt. A hard, solid warmth stirred briefly against my stomach.

“Surely not?” I said, amused despite my tiredness. “Jamie, you must be half-dead.”

He laughed tiredly, holding me close with one large, warm hand on the small of my back.

“A lot more than half, Sassenach. I’m knackered, and my cock’s the only thing too stupid to know it. I canna lie wi’ ye without wanting you, but wanting’s all I’m like to do.”

I fumbled with the hem of his shirt, then pushed it up and wrapped my hand gently around him. Even warmer than the skin of his belly, his penis was silken under the touch of my stroking thumb, pulsing strongly with each beat of his heart.

He made a small sound of half-painful content, and rolled slowly onto his back, letting his legs sprawl loosely outward, half-covered by my cloak.

The sun had reached our pile of leaves, and my shoulders relaxed under the warming touch of the light. Everything seemed slightly tinged with gold, the mingled result of early autumn and extreme fatigue. I felt languid and vaguely disembodied, watching the small stirrings of his flesh under my fingers. All the terror and the tiredness and the noise of the two days past ebbed slowly away, leaving us alone together.

The haze of fatigue seemed to act as a magnifying glass, exaggerating tiny details and sensations. The tail of his saber wound was visible beneath the rucked-up shirt, crusted black against the fair skin. Two or three small flies buzzed low, investigating, and I waved them away. My ears rang with the silence, the breath of the trees no match for the echoes of the town.

I laid my cheek against him, feeling the hard, smooth curve of his hip bone, close under the skin. His skin was transparent in the crease of his groin, the branching veins blue and delicate as a child’s.

His hand rose slowly, floating like the leaves, and rested lightly on my head.

“Claire. I need you,” he whispered. “I need ye so.”

Without the hampering petticoats, it was easy. I felt as though I were floating myself, rising without volition, drifting my skirts up the length of his body, settling over him like a cloud on a hilltop, sheltering his need.

His eyes were closed, head laid back, the red gold of his hair tumbled coarsely in the leaves. But his hands rose together and settled surely on my waist, resting without weight on the curve of my hips.

My eyes closed as well, and I felt the shapes of his mind, as surely as I felt those of his body under me; exhaustion blocked our every thought and memory; every sensation but the knowledge of each other.

“Not… long,” he whispered. I nodded, knowing he felt what he did not see, and rose above him, thighs powerful and sure under the stained fabric of my gown.

Once, and twice, and again, and once again, and the tremor rose through him and through me, like the rising of water through the roots of a plant and into its leaves.

The breath left him in a sigh, and I felt his descent into unconsciousness like the dimming of a lamp. I fell beside him, with barely time to draw the heavy folds of the cloak up over us before the darkness filled me, and I lay weighted to the earth by the heavy warmth of his seed in my belly. We slept.

37 HOLYROOD

Edinburgh, October 1745

The knock on my door surprised me from an inspection of my newly replenished medical boxes. After the stunning victory at Prestonpans, Charles had led his triumphant army back to Edinburgh, to bask in adulation. While he was basking, his generals and chieftains labored, rallying their men and procuring what equipment was to be had, in preparation for whatever was coming next.

Buoyed by early success, Charles talked freely of taking Stirling, then Carlyle, and then, perhaps, of advancing south, even to London itself. I spent my spare time counting suture needles, hoarded willow bark, and stole every spare ounce of alcohol I could find, to be brewed into disinfectant.

“What is it?” I asked, opening the door. The messenger was a young boy, scarcely older than Fergus. He was trying to look grave and deferential, but couldn’t suppress his natural curiosity. I saw his eyes dart around the room, resting on the large medicine chest in the corner with fascination. Clearly the rumors concerning me had spread through the palace of Holyrood.

“His Highness has asked for ye, Mistress Fraser,” he answered. Bright brown eyes scanned me closely, no doubt looking for signs of supernatural possession. He seemed slightly disappointed at my depressingly normal appearance.

“Oh, has he?” I said. “Well, all right. Where is he, then?”

“In the morning drawing room, Mistress. I’m to take ye. Oh…” The thought struck him as he turned, and he swung back before I could close the door. “You’re to bring your box of medicines, if ye’d be so kind.”

My escort brimmed with self-importance at his mission as he escorted me down the long hallway to the Royal wing of the palace. Plainly someone had been schooling him in the behavior appropriate to a Royal page, but an occasional exuberant skip in his step betrayed his newness to the job.

What on earth did Charles want with me? I wondered. While he tolerated me on Jamie’s account, the story of La Dame Blanche had plainly disconcerted him and made him uneasy. More than once, I had surprised him crossing himself surreptitiously in my presence, or making the quick two-fingered “horns” sign against evil. The idea that he would ask me to treat him medically was unlikely in the extreme.

When the heavy cross-timbered door swung open into the small morning drawing room, it seemed still more unlikely. The Prince, plainly in good health, was leaning on the painted harpsichord, picking out a hesitant tune with one finger. His delicate skin was mildly flushed, but with excitement, not fever, and his eyes were clear and attentive when he looked up at me.

“Mistress Fraser! How kind of you to attend me so shortly!” He was dressed this morning with even more lavishness than usual, bewigged and wearing a new cream-colored silk waistcoat, embroidered with flowers. He must be excited about something, I thought; his English went to pot whenever he became agitated.

“My pleasure, Your Highness,” I said demurely, dropping a brief curtsy. He was alone, an unusual state of affairs. Could he want my medical services for himself after all?

He made a quick, nervous gesture toward one of the gold damask chairs, urging me to be seated. A second chair was pulled up, facing it, but he walked up and down in front of me, too restless to sit.

“I need your help,” he said abruptly.

“Um?” I made a politely inquiring noise. Gonorrhea? I wondered, scanning him covertly. I hadn’t heard of any women since Louise de La Tour, but then, it only took once. He worked his lips in and out, as though searching for some alternative to telling me, but finally gave it up.

“I have a capo – a chief, you understand? – here. He thinks of joining my Father’s cause, but has still some doubt.”

“A clan chieftain, you mean?” He nodded, brow furrowed beneath the careful curls of his wig.

“Oui, Madame. He is of course in support of my Father’s claims…”

“Oh, of course,” I murmured.

“…but he is wishing to speak to you, Madame, before he will commit his men to follow me.”

He sounded incredulous, hearing his own words, and I realized that the flush on his cheeks came from a combination of bafflement and suppressed fury.

I was more than a little baffled myself. My imagination promptly visualized a clan chieftain with some dread disease, whose adherence to the cause depended on my performing a miraculous cure.

“You’re sure he wants to speak to me?” I said. Surely my reputation hadn’t gone that far.

Charles inclined his head coldly in my direction. “So he says, Madame.”

“But I don’t know any clan chieftains,” I said. “Bar Glengarry and Lochiel, of course. Oh, and Clanranald and Keppoch, of course. But they’ve all committed themselves to you already. And why on earth…”

“Well, he is of the opinion you are knowing him,” the Prince interrupted, syntax becoming more mangled with his rising temper. He clenched his hands, obviously forcing himself to speak courteously. “It is of importance – most importance, Madame, that he should become convinced to join me. I require… I request… you therefore, that you… convince him.”

I rubbed my nose thoughtfully, looking at him. One more point of decision. One more opportunity to make events move in the path I chose. And once more, the inability to know what best to do.

He was right; it was important to convince this chieftain to commit his resources to the Jacobite cause. With the Camerons, the various MacDonalds, and the others so far committed, the Jacobite army numbered barely two thousand men, and those the most ill-assorted lot of ragtag and draggletail that any general had ever been lumbered with. And yet, that ragged-arsed lot had taken the city of Edinburgh, routed a greatly superior English force at Preston, and showed every disposition to continue going through the countryside like a dose of salts.

We had been unable to stop Charles; perhaps, as Jamie said, the only way to avert calamity was now to do everything possible to help him. The addition of an important clan chieftain to the roster of supporters would greatly influence the odds of others joining. This might be a turning point, where the Jacobite forces could be increased to the level of a true army, actually capable of the proposed invasion of England. And if so, what in bloody hell would happen then?

I sighed. No matter what I decided to do, I couldn’t make any decision until I saw this mysterious person. I glanced down to make sure my gown was suitable for interviewing clan chieftains, infected or otherwise, and rose, tucking the medicine box under my arm.

“I’ll try, Your Highness,” I said.

The clenched hands relaxed, showing the bitten nails, and his frown lessened.

“Ah, good,” he said. He turned toward the door of the larger afternoon drawing room. “Come, I shall take you myself.”

The guard at the door jumped back in surprise as Charles flung the door open and strode past him without a glance. On the far side of the long, tapestry-hung room was an enormous marble fireplace, lined with white Delft tiles, painted with Dutch country scenes in shades of blue and mulberry. A small sofa was drawn up before the fire, and a big, broad-shouldered man in Highland dress stood beside it.

In a room less imposing, he would have bulked huge, legs like tree trunks in their checkered stockings beneath the kilt. As it was, in this immense room with its high gessoed ceilings, he was merely big – quite in keeping with the heroic figures of mythology that decorated the tapestries at either end of the room.

I stopped dead at sight of the enormous visitor, the shock of recognition still mingled with absolute incredulity. Charles had kept on, and now glanced back with some impatience, beckoning me to join him before the fire. I nodded to the big man. Then I walked slowly around the end of the sofa and gazed down at the man who lay upon it.

He smiled faintly when he saw me, the dove-gray eyes lighting with a spark of amusement.

“Yes,” he said, answering my expression. “I hadn’t really expected to meet you again, either. One might almost believe we are fated.” He turned his head and lifted a hand toward his enormous body-servant.

“Angus. Will ye fetch a drop of the brandy for Mistress Claire? I’m afraid the surprise of seeing me may have somewhat discomposed her.”

That, I thought, was putting it mildly. I sank into a splay-footed chair and accepted the crystal goblet Angus Mhor held out to me.

Colum MacKenzie’s eyes hadn’t changed; neither had his voice. Both held the essence of the man who had led clan MacKenzie for thirty years, despite the disease that had crippled him in his teens. Everything else had changed sadly for the worse, though; the black hair streaked heavily with gray, the lines of his face cut deep into skin that had fallen slack over the sharp outlines of bone. Even the broad chest was sunken and the powerful shoulders hunched, flesh fallen away from the fragile skeleton beneath.

He already held a glass half-filled with amber liquid, glowing in the firelight. He raised himself painfully to a sitting position and lifted the cup in ironic salute.

“You’re looking very well… niece.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Charles’s mouth drop open.

“You aren’t,” I said bluntly.

He glanced dispassionately down at the bowed and twisted legs. In a hundred years’ time, they would call this disease after its most famous sufferer – the Toulouse-Lautrec syndrome.

“No,” he said. “But then, it’s been two years since you saw me last. Mrs. Duncan estimated my survival at less than two years, then.”

I took a swallow of the brandy. One of the best. Charles was anxious.

“I shouldn’t have thought you’d put much stock in a witch’s curse,” I said.

A smile twitched the fine-cut lips. He had the bold beauty of his brother Dougal, ruined as it was, and when he lifted the veil of detachment from his eyes, the power of the man overshone the wreck of his body.

“Not in curses, no. I had the distinct impression that the lady was dealing in observation, however, not malediction. And I have seldom met a more acute observer than Geillis Duncan – with one exception.” He inclined his head gracefully toward me, making his meaning clear.

“Thanks,” I said.

Colum glanced up at Charles, who was gaping in bewilderment at these exchanges.

“I thank you for your graciousness in permitting me to use your premises for my meeting with Mrs. Fraser, Your Highness,” he said, with a slight bow. The words were sufficiently civil, but the tone made it an obvious dismissal. Charles, who was by no means used to being dismissed, flushed hotly and opened his mouth. Then, recalling himself, he snapped it shut, bowed shortly, and turned on his heel.

“We won’t need the guard, either,” I called after him. His shoulders hunched and the back of his neck grew red beneath the tail of his wig, but he gestured abruptly, and the guard at the door, with an astonished glance at me, followed him out.

“Hm.” Colum cast a brief glance of disapproval at the door, then returned his attention to me.

“I asked to see you because I owe ye an apology,” he said, without preamble.

I leaned back in my chair, goblet resting nonchalantly on my stomach.

“Oh, an apology?” I said, with as much sarcasm as could be mustered on short notice. “For trying to have me burnt for witchcraft, I suppose you mean?” I flipped a hand in gracious dismissal. “Pray think nothing of it.” I glared at him. “Apology?!”

He smiled, not disconcerted in the slightest.

“I suppose it seems a trifle inadequate,” he began.

“Inadequate?! For having me arrested and thrown into a thieves’ hole for three days without decent food or water? For having me stripped half-naked and whipped before every person in Cranesmuir? For leaving me a hairsbreadth away from a barrel of pitch and a bundle of faggots?” I stopped and took a deep breath. “Now that you mention it,” I said, a little more calmly, “ ‘inadequate’ is precisely what I’d call it.”

The smile had vanished.

“I beg your pardon for my apparent levity,” he said softly. “I had no intent to mock you.”

I looked at him, but could see no lingering gleam of amusement in the black-lashed eyes.

“No,” I said, with another deep breath. “I don’t suppose you did. I suppose you’re going to say that you had no intent to have me arrested for witchcraft, either.”

The gray eyes sharpened. “You knew that?”

“Geilie said so. While we were in the thieves’ hole. She said it was her you meant to dispose of; I was an accident.”

“You were.” He looked suddenly very tired. “Had ye been in the castle, I could have protected you. What in the name of God led ye to go down to the village?”

“I was told that Geilie Duncan was ill and asking for me,” I replied shortly.

“Ah,” he said softly. “You were told. By whom, and I may ask?”

“Laoghaire.” Even now, I could not repress a brief spurt of rage at the girl’s name. Out of thwarted jealousy over my having married Jamie, she had deliberately tried to have me killed. Considerable depths of malice for a sixteen-year-old girl. And even now, mingled with the rage was that tiny spark of grim satisfaction; he’s mine, I thought, almost subconsciously. Mine. You’ll never take him from me. Never.

“Ah,” Colum said again, staring thoughtfully at my flushed countenance. “I thought perhaps that was the way of it. Tell me,” he continued, raising one dark brow, “if a mere apology strikes you as inadequate, will ye have vengeance instead?”

“Vengeance?” I must have looked startled at the idea, for he smiled faintly, though without humor.

“Aye. The lass was wed six months ago, to Hugh MacKenzie of Muldaur, one of my tacksmen. He’ll do with her as I say, and ye want her punished. What will ye have me do?”

I blinked, taken aback by his offer. He appeared in no hurry for an answer; he sat quietly, sipping the fresh glass of brandy that Angus Mhor poured for him. He wasn’t staring at me, but I got up and moved away toward the windows, wanting to be alone for a moment.

The walls here were five feet thick; by leaning forward into the deep window embrasure I could assure myself of privacy. The bright sun illuminated the fine blond hairs on my forearms as I rested them on the sill. It made me think of the thieves’ hole, that damp, reeking pit, and the single bar of sunlight that had shone through an opening above, making the dark hole below seem that much more like a grave by contrast.

I had spent my first day there in cold and dirt, full of stunned disbelief; the second in shivering misery and growing fear as I discovered the full extent of Geillis Duncan’s treachery and Colum’s measures against it. And on the third day, they had taken me to trial. And I had stood, filled with shame and terror, under the clouds of a lowering autumn sky, feeling the jaws of Colum’s trap close round me, sprung by a word from the girl Laoghaire.

Laoghaire. Fair-skinned and blue-eyed, with a round, pretty face, but nothing much to distinguish her from the other girls at Leoch. I had thought about her – in the pit with Geillis Duncan, I had had time to think of a lot of things. But furious and terrified as I had been, furious as I remained, I couldn’t, either then or now, bring myself to see her as intrinsically evil.

“She was only sixteen, for God’s sake!”

“Old enough to marry,” said a sardonic voice behind me, and I realized that I had spoken aloud.

“Yes, she wanted Jamie,” I said, turning around. Colum was still sitting on the sofa, stumpy legs covered with a rug. Angus Mhor stood silent behind him, heavy-lidded eyes fixed on his master. “Perhaps she thought she loved him.”

Men were drilling in the courtyard, amid shouts and clashing of arms. The sun glanced off the metal of swords and muskets, the brass studding of targes – and off the red-gold of Jamie’s hair, flying in the breeze as he wiped a hand across his face, flushed and sweating from the exercise, laughing at one of Murtagh’s deadpan remarks.

I had perhaps done Laoghaire an injustice, after all, in assuming her feelings to be less than my own. Whether she had acted from immature spite or from a true passion, I could never know. In either case, she had failed. I had survived. And Jamie was mine. As I watched, he rucked up his kilt and casually scratched his bottom, the sunlight catching the reddish-gold fuzz that softened the iron-hard curve of his thigh. I smiled, and went back to my seat near Colum.

“I’ll take the apology,” I said.

He nodded, gray eyes thoughtful.

“You’ve a belief in mercy, then, Mistress?”

“More in justice,” I said. “Speaking of which, I don’t imagine you traveled all the way from Leoch to Edinburgh merely to apologize to me. It must have been a hellish journey.”

“Aye, it was.” The huge, silent bulk of Angus Mhor shifted an inch or two behind him, and the massive head bent toward his laird in eloquent witness. Colum sensed the movement and raised a hand briefly – it’s all right, the gesture said, I’m all right for the present.

“No,” Colum went on. “I did not know ye were in Edinburgh, in fact, until His Highness mentioned Jamie Fraser, and I asked.” A sudden smile grew on his face. “His Highness isn’t over fond of you, Mistress Claire. But I suppose ye knew that?”

I ignored this. “So you really are considering joining Prince Charles?”

Colum, Dougal, and Jamie all had the capacity for hiding what they were thinking when they chose to, but of the three, Colum was undoubtedly best at it. You’d get more from one of the carved heads on the fountain in the front courtyard, if he was feeling uncommunicative.

“I’ve come to see him” was all he said.

I sat a moment, wondering what, if anything, I could – or should – say in Charles’s behalf. Perhaps I would do better to leave it to Jamie. After all, the fact that Colum felt regret over nearly killing me by accident didn’t mean he was necessarily inclined to trust me. And while the fact that I was here, part of Charles’s entourage, surely argued against my being an English spy, it wasn’t impossible that I was.

I was still debating with myself when Colum suddenly put down his glass of brandy and looked straight at me.

“D’ye know how much of this I’ve had since morning?”

“No.” His hands were steady, calloused and roughened from his disease, but well kept. The reddened lids and slightly bloodshot eyes could as easily be from the rigors of travel as from drink. There was no slurring of speech, and no more than a certain deliberateness of movement to indicate that he wasn’t sober as a judge. But I had seen Colum drink before, and had a very respectful idea of his capacity.

He waved away Angus Mhor’s hand, hovering above the decanter. “Half a bottle. I’ll have finished it by tonight.”

“Ah.” So that was why I had been asked to bring my medicine box. I reached for it, where I had set it on the floor.

“If you’re needing that much brandy, there isn’t much that will help you besides some form of opium,” I said, flicking through my assortment of vials and jars. “I think I have some laudanum here, but I can get you some-”

“That isn’t what I want from you.” The tone of authority in his voice stopped me, and I looked up. If he could keep his thoughts to himself, he could also let them show when he chose.

“I could get laudanum easily enough,” he said. “I imagine there’s an apothecarist in the city who sells it – or poppy syrup, or undiluted opium, for that matter.”

I let the lid of the small chest fall shut and rested my hands on top of it. So he didn’t mean to waste away in a drugged state, leaving the leadership of the clan uncertain. And if it were not a temporary oblivion he sought from me, what else? A permanent one, perhaps. I knew Colum MacKenzie. And the clear, ruthless mind that had planned Geillis Duncan’s destruction would not hesitate over his own.

Now it was clear. He had come to see Charles Stuart, to make the final decision whether to commit the MacKenzies of Leoch to the Jacobite cause. Once committed, it would be Dougal who led the clan. And then…

“I was under the impression that suicide was considered a mortal sin,” I said.

“I imagine it is,” he said, undisturbed. “A sin of pride, at least, that I should choose a clean death at the time of my own devising, as best suits my purpose. I don’t, however, expect to suffer unduly for my sin, having put no credence in the existence of God since I was nineteen or so.”

It was quiet in the room, beyond the crackle of the fire and the muffled shouts of mock battle from below. I could hear his breathing, a slow and steady sigh.

“Why ask me?” I said. “You’re right, you could get laudanum where you liked, so long as you have money – and you do. Surely you know that enough of it will kill you. It’s an easy death, at that.”

“Too easy.” He shook his head. “I have had little to depend on in life, save my wits. I would keep them, even to meet death. As for ease…” He shifted slightly on the sofa, making no effort to hide his discomfort. “I shall have enough, presently.”

He nodded toward my box. “You shared Mrs. Duncan’s knowledge of medicines. I thought it possible that you knew what she used to kill her husband. That seemed quick and certain. And appropriate,” he added wryly.

“She used witchcraft, according to the verdict of the court.” The court that condemned her to death, in accordance with your plan, I thought. “Or do you not believe in witchcraft?” I asked.

He laughed, a pure, carefree sound in the sunlit room. “A man who doesn’t believe in God can scarce credit power to Satan, can he?”

I still hesitated, but he was a man who judged others as shrewdly as he did himself. He had asked my pardon before asking my favor, and satisfied himself that I had a sense of justice – or of mercy. And it was, as he said, appropriate. I opened the box and took out the small vial of cyanide that I kept to kill rats.

“I thank ye, Mistress Claire,” he said, formal again, though the smile still lingered in his eyes. “Had my nephew not proved your innocence with such flamboyance at Cranesmuir, still I would never believe you a witch. I have no more notion now than I had at our first meeting, as to who you are, or why you are here, but a witch is not one of the possibilities I’ve ever considered.” He paused, one brow raised. “I don’t suppose you’d be inclined to tell me who – or what – you are?”

I hesitated for a moment. But a man with belief in neither God nor Devil was not likely to believe the truth of my presence here, either. I squeezed his fingers lightly and released them.

“Better call me a witch,” I said. “It’s as close as you’re likely to get.”

On my way out to the courtyard next morning, I met Lord Balmerino on the stairs.

“Oh, Mistress Fraser!” he greeted me jovially. “Just who I was looking for.”

I smiled at him; a chubby, cheerful man, he was one of the refreshing features of life in Holyrood.

“If it isn’t fever, flux, or French pox,” I said, “can it wait for a moment? My husband and his uncle are giving a demonstration of Highland sword-fighting for the benefit of Don Francisco de la Quintana.”

“Oh, really? I must say, I should like to see that myself.” Balmerino fell into step beside me, head bobbing cheerfully at the level of my shoulder. “I do like a pretty man with a sword,” he said. “And anything that will sweeten the Spaniards has my most devout approval.”

“Mine, too.” Deeming it too dangerous for Fergus to lift His Highness’s correspondence inside Holyrood, Jamie was dependent for information on what he learned from Charles himself. This seemed to be quite a lot, though; Charles considered Jamie one of his intimates – virtually the only Highland chief to be accorded such a mark of favor, small as was his contribution in men and money.

So far as money went, though, Charles had confided that he had high hopes of support from Philip of Spain, whose latest letter to James in Rome had been distinctly encouraging. Don Francisco, while not quite an envoy, was certainly a member of the Spanish Court, and might be relied upon to carry back his report of how matters stood with the Stuart rising. This was Charles’s opportunity to see how far his own belief in his destiny would carry him, in convincing Highland chiefs and foreign kings to join him.

“What did you want to see me for?” I asked as we came out onto the walkway that edged the courtyard of Holyrood. A small crowd of spectators was assembling, but neither Don Francisco nor the two combatants were yet in sight.

“Oh!” Reminded, Lord Balmerino groped inside his coat. “Nothing of great importance, my dear lady. I received these from one of my messengers, who obtained them from a kinsman to the South. I thought you might find them amusing.”

He handed me a thin sheaf of crudely printed papers. I recognized them as broadsheets, the popular circulars distributed in taverns or that fluttered from doorposts and hedges through towns and villages.

“Charles Edward Stuart, known to all as The Younge Pretender” read one. “Be it Known to all Present that this Depraved and Dangerous Person, having landed Unlawfully upon the shores of Scotland, hath Incited to Riot the Population of that Country, and hath Unleashed upon Innocent Citizens the Fury of an Unjust War.” There was quite a lot more of it, all in the same vein, concluding with an exhortation to the Innocent Citizens reading this indictment “to do all in their Power to Deliver ye this Person to the Justice which he so Richly Deserves.” The sheet was decorated at the top with what I supposed was meant as a drawing of Charles; it didn’t bear much resemblance to the original, but definitely looked Depraved and Dangerous, which I supposed was the general idea.

“That one’s quite fairly restrained,” said Balmerino, peering over my elbow. “Some of the others show a most impressive range both of imagination and invective, though; look at this one. That’s me,” he said, pointing at the paper with evident delight.

The broadsheet showed a rawboned Highlander, thickly bewhiskered, with beetling brows and eyes that glared wildly under the shadow of a Scotch bonnet. I looked askance at Lord Balmerino, clad, as was his habit, in breeches and coat in the best of taste; made of fine stuff, but subdued both in cut and color, to flatter his tubby little form. He stared at the broadsheet, meditatively stroking his round, clean-shaven cheeks.

“I don’t know,” he said. “The whiskers do lend me a most romantic air, do they not? Still, a beard itches most infernally; I’m not sure I could bear it, even for the sake of being picturesque.”

I turned to the next page, and nearly dropped the whole sheaf.

“They did a slightly better job in rendering a likeness of your husband,” Balmerino observed, “but of course our dear Jamie does actually look somewhat like the popular English conception of a Highland thug – begging your pardon, my dear, I mean no offense. He is large, though, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” I said faintly, perusing the broadsheet’s charges.

“Didn’t realize your husband was in the habit of roasting and eating small children, did you?” said Balmerino, chortling. “I always thought his size was due to something special in his diet.”

The little earl’s irreverent attitude did a good deal to steady me. I could almost smile myself at the ridiculous charges and descriptions, though I wondered just how much credence the readers of the broadsheets placed in them. Rather a lot, I was afraid; people so often seemed not only willing but eager to believe the worst – and the worse, the better.

“It’s the last one I thought you’d be interested in.” Balmerino interrupted my thoughts, flipping over the next-to-last sheet.

“The Stuart witch” proclaimed the heading. A long-nosed female with pinpoint pupils stared back at me, over a text which accused Charles Stuart of invoking “ye Pow’rs of Darkeness” in support of his unlawful cause. By retaining among his intimate entourage a well-known witch – one holding power of life and death over men, as well as the more usual power of blighting crops, drying up cattle, and causing blindness – Charles gave evidence of the fact that he had sold his own soul to the devil, and thus would “Frye in Hell Forever!” as the tract gleefully concluded.

“I assume it must be you,” Balmerino said. “Though I assure you, my dear, the picture hardly does you justice.”

“Very entertaining,” I said. I gave the sheaf back to his lordship, restraining the urge to wipe my hand on my skirt. I felt a trifle ill, but did my best to smile at Balmerino. He glanced at me shrewdly, then took my elbow with a reassuring squeeze.

“Don’t trouble yourself, my dear,” he said. “Once His Majesty has regained his crown, all this nonsense will be forgotten in short order. Yesterday’s villain is tomorrow’s hero in the eyes of the populace; I’ve seen it time and again.”

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” I murmured. And if His Majesty King James didn’t regain his crown…

“And if our efforts should by misfortune be unsuccessful,” Balmerino said, echoing my thoughts, “what the broadsheets say will be the least of our worries.”

“En garde.” With the formal French opening, Dougal fell into a classic dueler’s stance, side-on to his opponent, sword-arm bent with the blade at the ready, back arm raised in a graceful arc, hand dropping from the wrist in open demonstration that no dagger was held in reserve.

Jamie’s blade crossed Dougal’s, the metal meeting with the whisper of a clash.

“Je suis prest.” Jamie caught my eye, and I could see the flicker of humor cross his face. The customary dueler’s response was his own clan motto. Je suis prest. “I am ready.”

For a moment, I thought he might not be, and gasped involuntarily as Dougal’s sword shot out in a lunging flash. But Jamie had seen the motion start, and by the time the blade crossed the place where he had been standing, he was no longer there.

Sidestep, a quick beat of the blade, and a counter-lunge that brought the blades screeching together along their lengths. The two swords held fast together at the hilt for only a second, then the swordsmen broke, stepped back, circled and returned to the attack.

With a clash and a beat, a parry and a lunge in tierce, Jamie came within an inch of Dougal’s hip, swung adroitly aside with a flare of green kilt. A parry and a dodge and a quick upward beat that knocked the pressing blade aside, and Dougal stepped forward, forcing Jamie back a pace.

I could see Don Francisco, standing on the opposite side of the courtyard with Charles, Sheridan, the elderly Tullibardine, and a few others. A small smile curved the Spaniard’s lips under a wisp of waxed mustache, but I couldn’t tell whether it was admiration for the fighters, or merely a variation on his normally supercilious expression. Colum was nowhere in sight. I wasn’t surprised; aside from his normal reluctance to appear in public, he must have been exhausted by the journey to Edinburgh.

Both gifted swordsmen, and both left-handed, uncle and nephew were putting on a skilled display – a show made more impressive by the fact that they were fighting in accordance with the most exacting rules of French dueling, but using neither the rapier-like smallsword that formed part of a gentleman’s costume, nor the saber of a soldier. Instead, both men wielded Highland broadswords, each a full yard of tempered steel, with a flat blade that could cleave a man from crown to neck. They handled the enormous weapons with a grace and an irony that could not have been managed by smaller men.

I saw Charles murmur in Don Francisco’s ear, and the Spaniard nod, never taking his eyes off the flash and clang of the battle in the grass-lined court. Well matched in size and agility, Jamie and his uncle gave every appearance of intending to kill each other. Dougal had been Jamie’s teacher in the art of swordsmanship, and they had fought back to back and shoulder to shoulder many times before; each man knew the subtleties of the other’s style as well as he knew his own – or at least I hoped so.

Dougal pressed his advantage with a double lunge, forcing Jamie back toward the edge of the courtyard. Jamie stepped quickly to one side, struck Dougal’s blade away with one beat, then slashed back the other way, with a speed that sent the blade of his broadsword through the cloth of Dougal’s right sleeve. There was a loud ripping noise, and a strip of white linen hung free, fluttering in the breeze.

“Oh, nicely fought, sir!” I turned to see who had spoken, and found Lord Kilmarnock standing at my shoulder. A serious, plain-faced man in his early thirties, he and his young son Johnny were also housed in the guest quarters of Holyrood.

The son was seldom far from his father, and I glanced around in search of him. I hadn’t far to look; he was standing on the other side of his father, jaw slightly agape as he watched the swordplay. My eye caught a faint movement from the far side of a pillar: Fergus, black eyes fixed unblinkingly on Johnny. I lowered my brows and glowered at him menacingly.

Johnny, rather overconscious of being Kilmarnock’s heir, and still more conscious of his privilege in going to war with his father at the age of twelve, tended to lord it over the other lads. In the manner of lads, most of them either avoided Johnny, or bided their time, waiting for him to step out of his father’s protective shadow.

Fergus most definitely fell into the latter group. Taking umbrage at a disparaging remark of Johnny’s about “bonnet lairds,” which he had – quite accurately – interpreted as an insult to Jamie, Fergus had been forcibly prevented from assaulting Johnny in the rock garden a few days before. Jamie had administered swift justice on a physical level, and then pointed out to Fergus that while loyalty was an admirable virtue, and highly prized by its recipient, stupidity was not.

“That lad is two years older than you, and two stone heavier,” he had said, shaking Fergus gently by the shoulder. “D’ye think you’ll help me by getting your own head knocked in? There’s times to fight wi’out counting the cost, but there’s times ye bite your tongue and bide your time. “Ne pétez plus haut que votre cul, eh?”

Fergus had nodded, wiping his tear-stained cheeks with the tail of his shirt, but I had my doubts as to whether Jamie’s words had made much impression on him. I didn’t like the speculative look I saw now in those wide black eyes, and thought that had Johnny been a trifle brighter, he would have been standing between me and his father.

Jamie dropped halfway to one knee, with a murderous jab upward that brought his blade whizzing past Dougal’s ear. The MacKenzie jerked back, looking startled for a moment, then grinned with a flash of white teeth, and banged his blade flat on top of Jamie’s head, with a resounding clong.

I heard the sound of applause from across the square. The fight was degenerating from elegant French duel into Highland brawl, and the spectators were thoroughly enjoying the joke of it.

Lord Kilmarnock, also hearing the sound, looked across the square and grimaced sourly.

“His Highness’s advisers are summoned to meet the Spaniard,” he observed sarcastically. “O’Sullivan, and that ancient fop Tullibardine. Does he take advice of Lord Elcho? Balmerino, Lochiel, or even my humble self?”

This was plainly a rhetorical question, and I contented myself with a faint murmur of sympathy, keeping my eyes on the fighters. The clash of steel rang off the stones, nearly drowning out Kilmarnock’s words. Once having started, though, he seemed unable to contain his bitterness.

“No, indeed!” he said. “O’Sullivan and O’Brien and the rest of the Irish; they risk nothing! If the worst should ever happen, they can plead immunity from prosecution by reason of their nationality. But we – we who are risking property, honor – life itself! We are ignored and treated like common dragoons. I said good morning to His Highness yesterday, and he swept by me, nose in the air, as though I had committed a breach in etiquette by so addressing him!”

Kilmarnock was plainly furious, and with good reason. Ignoring the men whom he had charmed and courted into providing the men and money for his adventure, Charles then had rejected them, turning to the comfort of his old advisers from the Continent – most of whom regarded Scotland as a howling wilderness, and its inhabitants as little more than savages.

There was a whoop of surprise from Dougal, and a wild laugh from Jamie. Dougal’s left sleeve hung free from the shoulder, the flesh beneath brown and smooth, unmarred by a scratch or a drop of blood.

“I’ll pay ye for that, wee Jamie,” Dougal said, grinning. Droplets of sweat ran down his face.

“Will ye, Uncle?” Jamie panted. “With what?” A flash of metal, judged to a nicety, and Dougal’s sporran flew jingling across the stones, clipped free from the belt.

I caught a movement from the corner of my eye, and turned my head sharply.

“Fergus!” I said.

Kilmarnock turned in the direction I was looking, and saw Fergus. The boy carried a large stick in one hand, with a casualness so assumed as to be laughable, if it weren’t for the implicit threat.

“Don’t trouble yourself, my lady Broch Tuarach,” said Lord Kilmarnock, after a brief glance. “You may depend upon my son to defend himself honorably, if the occasion demands it.” He beamed indulgently at Johnny, then turned back to the swordsmen. I turned back, too, but kept an ear cocked in Johnny’s direction. It wasn’t that I thought Fergus lacked a sense of honor; I just had the impression that it diverged rather sharply from Lord Kilmarnock’s notion of that virtue.

“Gu leoir!” At the cry from Dougal, the fight stopped abruptly. Sweating freely, both swordsmen bowed toward the applause of the Royal party, and stepped forward to accept congratulations and be introduced to Don Francisco.

“Milord!” called a high voice from the pillars. “Please – le parabola!”

Jamie turned, half-frowning at the interruption, but then shrugged, smiled, and stepped back into the center of the courtyard. Le parabola was the name Fergus had given this particular trick.

With a quick bow to His Highness, Jamie took the broadsword carefully by the tip of the blade, stooped slightly, and with a tremendous heave, sent the blade whirling straight up into the air. Every eye fixed on the basket-hilted sword, the tempered length of it glinting in the sun as it turned end over end over end, with such inertia that it seemed to hang in the air for a moment before plunging earthward.

The essence of the trick, of course, was to hurl the weapon so that it buried itself point-first in the earth as it came down. Jamie’s refinement of this was to stand directly under the arc of descent, stepping back at the last moment to avoid being skewered by the falling blade.

The sword chunked home at his feet to the accompaniment of a collective “ah!” from the spectators. It was only as Jamie bent to pull the sword from its grassy sheath that I noticed the ranks of the spectators had been reduced by two.

One, the twelve-year-old Master of Kilmarnock, lay facedown on the grassy verge, the swelling bump on his head already apparent through the lank brown hair. The second was nowhere visible, but I caught a faint whisper from the shadows behind me.

“Ne pétez plus haut que votre cul,” it said, with satisfaction. Don’t fart above your arsehole.

The weather was unseasonably warm for November, and the omnipresent clouds had broken, letting a fugitive autumn sun shine briefly on the grayness of Edinburgh. I had taken advantage of the transient warmth to be outside, however briefly, and was crawling on my knees through the rock garden behind Holyrood, much to the amusement of several Highlanders hanging about the grounds, enjoying the sunshine in their own manner, with a jug of homebrewed whisky.

“Art huntin’ burras, Mistress?” called one man.

“Nay, it’ll be fairies, surely, not caterpillars,” joked another.

“You’re more likely to find fairies in that jug than I am under rocks,” I called back.

The man held the jug up, closed one eye and squinted theatrically into its depths.

“Aye, well, so long as it isna caterpillars in my jug,” he replied, and took a deep swig.

In fact, what I was hunting would make as little – or as much – sense to them as caterpillars, I reflected, shoving one boulder a few inches to the side to expose the orange-brown lichen on its surface. A delicate scraping with the small penknife, and several flakes of the odd symbiont fell into my palm, to be transferred with due care to the cheap tin snuffbox that held my painfully acquired hoard.

Something of the relatively cosmopolitan attitude of Edinburgh had rubbed off on the visiting Highlanders; while in the remote mountain villages, such behavior would have gotten me viewed with suspicion, if not downright hostility, here it seemed no more than a harmless quirk. While the Highlanders treated me with great respect, I was relieved to find that there was no fear mingled with it.

Even my basic Englishness was forgiven, once it was known who my husband was. I supposed I was never going to know more than Jamie had told me about what he had done at the Battle of Prestonpans, but whatever it was, it had mightily impressed the Scots, and “Red Jamie” drew shouts and hails whenever he ventured outside Holyrood.

In fact, a shout from the nearby Highlanders drew my attention at this point, and I looked up to see Red Jamie himself, strolling across the grass, waving absently to the men as he scanned the serried rocks behind the palace.

His face lightened as he saw me, and he came across the grass to where I knelt in the rockery.

“There you are,” he said. “Can ye come with me for a bit? And bring your wee basket along, if ye will.”

I scrambled to my feet, dusting the dried grass from the knees of my gown, and dropped my scraping knife into the basket.

“All right. Where are we going?”

“Colum’s sent word he wishes to speak with us. Both of us.”

“Where?” I asked, stretching my steps to keep up with his long stride down the path.

“The kirk in the Canongate.”

This was interesting. Whatever Colum wished to see us about, he clearly didn’t want the fact that he had spoken with us privately to be known in Holyrood.

Neither did Jamie; hence the basket. Passing arm in arm through the gate, my basket gave an apparent excuse for our venturing up the Royal Mile, whether it were to convey purchases home or distribute medicines to the men and their families quartered in the wynds and closes of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh sloped upward steeply along its one main street. Holyrood sat in dignity at the foot, the creaking Abbey vault alongside conferring a spurious air of gracious security. It loftily ignored the glowering presence of Edinburgh Castle, perched high on the crest of the rocky hill above. In between the two castles, the Royal Mile rose at a rough angle of forty-five degrees. Puffing redfaced at Jamie’s side, I wondered how in hell Colum MacKenzie had ever negotiated the quarter-mile of cobbled slope from the palace to the kirk.

We found Colum in the kirkyard, sitting on a stone bench where the late afternoon sun could warm his back. His blackthorn stick lay on the bench beside him, and his short, bowed legs dangled a few inches above the ground. Shoulders hunched and head bowed in thought, at a distance he looked like a gnome, a natural inhabitant of this man-made rock garden, with its tilted stones and creeping lichens. I eyed a prime specimen on a weathered vault, but supposed we had better not stop.

The grass was soundless under our feet, but Colum raised his head while we were still some distance away. There was nothing wrong with his senses, at least.

The shadow under a nearby lime tree moved slightly at our approach. There was nothing wrong with Angus Mhor’s senses, either. Satisfied of our identity, the big servant resumed his silent guardianship, becoming again part of the landscape.

Colum nodded in greeting and motioned to the seat beside him. Near at hand, there was no suggestion of the gnomish, despite his twisted body. Face-to-face, you saw nothing but the man within.

Jamie found me a seat on a nearby stone, before taking up the place indicated next to Colum. The marble was surprisingly cold, even through my thick skirts, and I shifted a bit, the carved skull and crossbones atop the memorial lumpy and uncomfortable under me. I saw the epitaph carved below it and grinned:

Here lies Martin Elginbrod,

Have mercie on my soul, Lord God,

As I would do were I Lord God,

And thou wert Martin Elginbrod.

Jamie raised one brow at me in warning, then turned back to Colum. “You asked to see us, Uncle?”

“I’ve a question for ye, Jamie Fraser,” Colum said, without preamble. “D’ye hold me as your kinsman?”

Jamie was silent for a moment, studying his uncle’s face. Then he smiled faintly.

“You’ve my mother’s eyes,” he said. “Shall I deny that?”

Colum looked startled for a moment. His eyes were the clear, soft gray of a dove’s wing, fringed thick with black lashes. For all their beauty, they could gleam cold as steel, and I wondered, not for the first time, just what Jamie’s mother had been like.

“You remember your mother? You were no more than a wee laddie when she died.”

Jamie’s mouth twisted slightly at this, but he answered calmly.

“Old enough. For that matter, my father’s house had a looking glass; I’m told I favor her a bit.”

Colum laughed shortly. “More than a bit.” He peered closely at Jamie, eyes squinting slightly in the bright sun. “Oh, aye, lad; you’re Ellen’s son, not a doubt of it. That hair, for the one thing…” He gestured vaguely toward Jamie’s hair, glinting auburn and amber, roan and cinnabar, a thick, wavy mass with a thousand colors of red and gold. “…And that mouth.” Colum’s own mouth rose at one side, as though in reluctant reminiscence. “Wide as a nightjar’s, I used to tease her. Ye could catch bugs like a toad, I’d say to her, had ye no but a sticky tongue.”

Taken by surprise, Jamie laughed.

“Willie said that once, to me,” he said, and then the full lips clamped shut; he spoke rarely of his dead elder brother, and never, I imagined, had he mentioned Willie to Colum before.

If Colum noticed the slip, he gave no sign of it.

“I wrote to her then,” he said, looking abstractedly at one of the tilted stones nearby. “When your brother and the babe died of the pox. That was the first time, since she left Leoch.”

“Since she wed my father, ye mean.”

Colum nodded slowly, still looking away.

“Aye. She was older than me, ye ken, by two years or so; about the same as between your sister and you.” The deep-set gray eyes swiveled back and fixed on Jamie.

“I’ve never met your sister. Were ye close, the two of you?”

Jamie didn’t speak, but nodded slightly, studying his uncle closely, as though looking for the answer to a puzzle in the worn face before him.

Colum nodded, too. “It was that way between Ellen and myself. I was a sickly wee thing, and she nursed me often. I remember the sun shining through her hair, and she telling me tales as I lay in bed. Even later” – the fine-cut lips lifted in a slight smile – “when my legs first gave way; she’d come and go, all about Leoch, and stop each morning and night in my chamber, to tell me who she’d seen and what they’d said. We’d talk, about the tenants and the tacksmen, and how things might be arranged. I was married then, but Letitia had no mind for such matters, and less interest.” He flipped a hand, dismissing his wife.

“We talked between us – sometimes with Dougal, sometimes alone – of how the fortunes of the clan might best be maintained; how peace might be kept among the septs, which alliances could be made with other clans, how the lands and the timber should be managed… And then she left,” he said abruptly, looking down at the broad hands folded on his knee. “With no asking of leave nor word of farewell. She was gone. And I heard of her from others now and then, but from herself – nothing.”

“She didn’t answer your letter?” I asked softly, not wanting to intrude. He shook his head, still looking down.

“She was ill; she’d lost a child, as well as having the pox. And perhaps she meant to write later; it’s an easy task to put off.” He smiled briefly, without humor, and then his face relaxed into somberness. “But by Christmas twelve-month, she was dead.”

He looked directly at Jamie, who met his gaze squarely.

“I was a bit surprised, then, when your father wrote to tell me he was taking you to Dougal, and wished ye then to come to me at Leoch for your schooling.”

“It was agreed so, when they wed,” Jamie answered. “That I should foster with Dougal, and then come to you for a time.” The dry twigs of a larch rattled in a passing wind, and he and Colum both hunched their shoulders against the sudden chill of it, their family resemblance exaggerated by the similarity of the gesture.

Colum saw my smile at their resemblance, and one corner of his mouth turned up in answer.

“Oh, aye,” he said to Jamie. “But agreements are worth as much as the men who make them, and nay more. And I didna know your father then.”

He opened his mouth to go on, but then seemed to reconsider what he had been about to say. The silence of the kirkyard flowed back into the space their conversation had made, filling in the gap as though no word were ever spoken.

It was Jamie, finally, who broke the silence once more.

“What did ye think of my father?” he asked, and I glimpsed in his tone that curiosity of a child who has lost his parents early, seeking clues to the identity of these people known only from a child’s restricted point of view. I understood the impulse; what little I knew of my own parents came almost entirely from Uncle Lamb’s brief and unsatisfactory answers to my questions – he was not a man given to character analysis.

Colum, on the other hand, was.

“What was he like, d’ye mean?” He looked his nephew over carefully, then gave a short grunt of amusement.

“Look ye in the mirror, lad,” he said, a half-grudging smile lingering on his face. “If it’s your mother’s face ye see, it’s your father looking back at ye through those damned Fraser cat-eyes.” He stretched and shifted his position, easing his bones on the lichened stone bench. His lips were pressed tight, by habit, against any exclamation of discomfort, and I could see what had made those deep creases between nose and mouth.

“To answer ye, though,” he went on, once more comfortably settled, “I didn’t like the man overmuch – nor he me – but I knew him at once for a man of honor.” He paused, then said, very softly, “I know you for the same, Jamie MacKenzie Fraser.”

Jamie didn’t change expression, but there was a faint quiver to his eyelids; only one as familiar with him as I was – or as observant as Colum was – would have noticed.

Colum let out his breath in a long sigh.

“So, lad, that’s why I wished to talk with you. I must decide, ye see, whether the MacKenzies of Leoch go for King James or King Geordie.” He smiled sourly. “It’s a case, I think, of the devil ye know, or the devil ye don’t, but it’s a choice I must make.”

“Dougal-” Jamie began, but his uncle cut him off with a sharp motion of his hand.

“Aye, I know what Dougal thinks – I’ve had little rest from it, these two years past,” he said impatiently. “But I am the MacKenzie of Leoch, and it’s mine to decide. Dougal will abide by what I say. I’d know what you’d advise me to do – for the sake of the clan whose blood runs in your veins.”

Jamie glanced up, eyes dark blue and impervious, hooded against the afternoon sun that shone in his face.

“I am here, and my men with me,” he said. “Surely my choice is plain?”

Colum shifted himself again, head cocked attentively to his nephew, as though to catch any nuances of voice or expression that might give him a clue.

“Is it?” he asked. “Men give their allegiance for any number of reasons, lad, and few of them have much to do with the reasons they speak aloud. I’ve talked with Lochiel, and Clanranald, and Angus and Alex MacDonald of Scotus. D’ye think they’re here only because they feel James Stuart their rightful king? Now I would talk with you – and hear the truth, for the sake of your father’s honor.”

Seeing Jamie hesitate, Colum went on, still watching his nephew keenly.

“I don’t ask for myself; if you’ve eyes, ye can see that the matter isn’t one that will trouble me long. But for Hamish – the lad is your cousin, remember. If there’s to be a clan for him to lead, once he’s of age – then I must choose rightly, now.”

He stopped speaking and sat still, the usual caution now relaxed from his features, the gray eyes open and listening.

Jamie sat as still as Colum, frozen like the marble angel on the tomb behind him. I knew the dilemma that preoccupied him, though no trace of it showed on the stern, chiseled face. It was the same one we had faced before, choosing to come with the men from Lallybroch. Charles’s Rising was balanced on a knife edge; the allegiance of a large clan such as the MacKenzies of Leoch might encourage others to join the brash Young Pretender, and lead to his success. But if it ended in failure nonetheless, the MacKenzies of Leoch could well end with it.

At last Jamie turned his head deliberately, and looked at me, blue eyes holding my own. You have some say in this, his look said. What shall I do?

I could feel Colum’s eyes upon me, too, and felt rather than saw the questioning lift of the thick, dark brows above them. But what I saw in my mind’s eye was young Hamish, a redheaded ten-year-old who looked enough like Jamie to be his son, rather than his cousin. And what life might be for him, and the rest of his clan, if the MacKenzies of Leoch fell with Charles at Culloden. The men of Lallybroch had Jamie to save them from final slaughter, if it came to that. The men of Leoch would not. And yet the choice could not be mine. I shrugged and bowed my head. Jamie took a deep breath, and made up his mind.

“Go home to Leoch, Uncle,” he said. “And keep your men there.”

Colum sat motionless for a long minute, looking straight at me. Finally, his mouth curled upward, but the expression was not quite a smile.

“I nearly stopped Ned Gowan, when he went to keep you from burning,” he said to me. “I suppose I’m glad I didn’t.”

“Thanks,” I said, my tone matching his.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck with a calloused hand, as though it ached under the weight of leadership.

“Well, then. I shall see His Highness in the morning, and tell him my decision.” The hand descended, lying inert on the stone bench, halfway between him and his nephew. “I thank ye, Jamie, for your advice.” He hesitated, then added, “And may God go with you.”

Jamie leaned forward and laid his hand over Colum’s. He smiled his mother’s wide, sweet smile and said, “And with you, too, mo caraidh.”

The Royal Mile was busy, thronged with people taking advantage of the brief hours of warmth. We walked in silence through the crowd, my hand tucked deep into the crook of Jamie’s elbow. Finally he shook his head, muttering something to himself in Gaelic.

“You did right,” I said to him, answering the thought rather than the words. “I would have done the same. Whatever happens, at least the MacKenzies will be safe.”

“Aye, perhaps.” He nodded to a greeting from a passing officer, jostling through the crowd that surrounded the World’s End. “But what of the rest – the MacDonalds and MacGillivrays, and the others that have come? Will they be destroyed now, where maybe they wouldn’t, had I had the nerve to tell Colum to join them?” He shook his head, face clouded. “There’s no knowing, is there, Sassenach?”

“No,” I said softly, squeezing his arm. “Never enough. Or maybe too much. But we can’t do nothing on that account, surely?”

He gave me a half-smile back, and pressed my hand against his side.

“No, Sassenach. I dinna suppose we can. And it’s done now, and naught can change it, so it’s no good worrying. The MacKenzies will stay out of it.”

The sentry at the gate of Holyrood was a MacDonald, one of Glengarry’s men. He recognized Jamie and nodded us into the courtyard, barely looking up from his louse-searching. The warm weather made the vermin active, and as they left their cozy nests in crotch and armpit, often they could be surprised while crossing the perilous terrain of shirt or tartan and removed from the body of their host.

Jamie said something to him in Gaelic, smiling. The man laughed, picked something from his shirt, and flicked it at Jamie, who pretended to catch it, eyed the imaginary beastie critically, then, with a wink at me, popped it into his mouth.

“Er, how is your son’s head, Lord Kilmarnock?” I inquired politely as we stepped out together onto the floor of Holyrood’s Great Gallery. I didn’t care greatly, but I thought as the topic couldn’t be avoided altogether, it was perhaps better to air it in a place where hostility was unlikely to be openly exhibited.

The Gallery met that criterion, I thought. The long, high-ceiled room with its two vast fireplaces and towering windows had been the scene of frequent balls and parties since Charles’s triumphant entry into Edinburgh in September. Now, crowded with the luminaries of Edinburgh’s upper class, all anxious to do honor to their Prince – once it appeared that he might actually win – the room positively glittered. Don Francisco, the guest of honor, stood at the far end of the room with Charles, dressed in the depressing Spanish style, with baggy dark pantaloons, shapeless coat, and even a small ruff, which seemed to provoke considerable suppressed amusement among the younger and more fashionable element.

“Oh, well enough, Mistress Fraser,” replied Kilmarnock imperturbably. “A dunt on the skull will not discommode a lad of that age for long; though his pride may take a bit more mending,” he added, with a sudden humorous twist to his long mouth.

I smiled at him, relieved to see it.

“You’re not angry?”

He shook his head, looking down to be sure that his feet were clear of my sweeping skirt.

“I have tried to teach John the things he should know as heir to Kilmarnock. In teaching him humility I seem to have signally failed; perhaps your servant may have had more success.”

“I suppose you didn’t whack him outside,” I said absently.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing,” I said flushing. “Look, is that Lochiel? I thought he was ill.”

Dancing required most of my breath, and Lord Kilmarnock appeared not to wish for conversation, so I had time to look around. Charles was not dancing; though he was a good dancer, and the young women of Edinburgh vied for his attentions, tonight he was thoroughly engrossed in the entertainment of his guest. I had seen a small cask with a Portuguese brand-mark burned into its side being rolled into the kitchens in the afternoon, and glasses of the ruby liquid kept reappearing by Don Francisco’s left hand as though by magic through the evening.

We crossed the path of Jamie, propelling one of the Misses Williams through the figures of the dance. There were three of them, nearly indistinguishable from one another – young, brown-haired, comely, and all “so terribly interested, Mr. Fraser, in this noble Cause.” They made me quite tired, but Jamie, ever the soul of patience, danced with them all, one by one, and answered the same silly questions over and over.

“Well, it’s a change for them to get out, poor things,” he explained kindly. “And their father’s a rich merchant, so His Highness would like to encourage the sympathy of the family.”

The Miss Williams with him looked enthralled, and I wondered darkly just how encouraging he was being. Then my attention shifted, as Balmerino danced by with Lord George Murray’s wife. I saw the Murrays exchange affectionate glances as they passed, he with another of the Misses Williams, and felt mildly ashamed of my noticing who Jamie danced with.

Not surprisingly, Colum wasn’t at the ball. I wondered whether he had had a chance to speak to Charles beforehand, but decided probably not; Charles looked much too cheerful and animated to have been the recipient of bad news anytime recently.

At one side of the Gallery, I caught sight of two stocky figures, almost identical in uncomfortable and unaccustomed formal dress. It was John Simpson, Master of the Swordmakers Guild of Glasgow, and his son, also John Simpson. Arrived earlier in the week to present His Highness with one of the magnificent basket-hilted broadswords for which they were famed throughout Scotland, the two artisans had plainly been invited tonight to show Don Francisco the depth of support that the Stuarts enjoyed.

Both men had thick, dark hair and beards, lightly frosted with gray. Simpson senior was salt with a sprinkle of pepper, while Simpson junior gave the impression of a dark hillside with a rim of snow crusted lightly round its frostline, white hairs confined to the temples and upper cheeks. As I watched, the older swordmaker poked his son sharply in the back and nodded with significance toward one of the merchants’ daughters, hovering near the edge of the floor under her father’s protection.

Simpson junior gave his father a skeptical glance, but then shrugged, stepped out, and offered his arm with a bow to the third Miss Williams.

I watched with amusement and fascination as they whirled out into the steps of the dance, for Jamie, who had met the Simpsons earlier, had told me that Simpson junior was quite deaf.

“From all the hammering at the forge, I should think,” he had said, showing me with pride the beautiful sword he had bought from the artisans. “Deaf as a stone; his father does the talkin’, but the young one sees everything.”

I saw the sharp dark eyes flick rapidly across the floor now, judging to a nicety the distance from one couple to the next. The young swordmaster trod a little heavily, but kept the measure of the dance well enough – at least as well as I did. Closing my eyes, I felt the thrum of the music vibrating through the wooden floor, from the cellos resting on it, and assumed that was what he followed. Then, opening my eyes so as not to crash into anyone, I saw Junior wince at a screeching miscue among the violins. Perhaps he did hear some sounds, then.

The circling of the dancers brought Kilmarnock and myself close to the place where Charles and Don Francisco stood, warming their coattails before the huge, tile-lined fireplace. To my surprise, Charles scowled at me over Don Francisco’s shoulder, motioning me away with a surreptitious movement of one hand. Seeing it as we turned, Kilmarnock gave a short laugh.

“So His Highness is afraid to have you introduced to the Spaniard!” he said.

“Really?” I looked back over my shoulder as we whirled away, but Charles had returned to his conversation, waving his hands with expressive Italian gestures as he talked.

“I expect so.” Lord Kilmarnock danced skillfully, and I was beginning to relax enough to be able to speak, without worrying incessantly about tripping over my skirts.

“Did you see that silly broadsheet Balmerino was showing everyone?” he asked, and when I nodded, went on, “I imagine His Highness saw it, too. And the Spanish are sufficiently superstitious to be ridiculously sensitive to idiocies of that sort. No person of sense or breeding could take such a thing seriously,” he assured me, “but no doubt His Highness thinks it best to be safe. Spanish gold is worth a considerable sacrifice, after all,” he added. Apparently including the sacrifice of his own pride; Charles still treated the Scottish earls and the Highland chieftains like beggars at his table, though they had at least been invited to the festivities tonight – no doubt to impress Don Francisco.

“Have you noticed the pictures?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. There were more than a hundred of them lining the walls of the Great Gallery, all portraits, all of kings and queens. And all with a most striking similarity.

“Oh, the nose?” he said, an amused smile replacing the grim expression that had taken possession of his face at sight of Charles and the Spaniard. “Yes, of course. Do you know the story behind it?”

The portraits, it seemed, were all the work of a single painter, one Jacob DeWitt, who had been commissioned by Charles II, upon that worthy’s restoration, to produce portraits of all the King’s ancestors, from the time of Robert the Bruce onward.

“To assure everyone of the ancientness of his lineage, and the entire appropriateness of his restoration,” Kilmarnock explained, a wry twist to his mouth. “I wonder if King James will undertake a similar project when he regains the throne?”

In any case, he continued, DeWitt had painted furiously, completing one portrait every two weeks in order to comply with the monarch’s demand. The difficulty, of course, was that DeWitt had no way of knowing what Charles’s ancestors had actually looked like, and had therefore used as sitters anyone he could drag into his studio, merely equipping each portrait with the same prominent nose, by way of ensuring a family resemblance.

“That’s King Charles himself,” Kilmarnock said, nodding at a full-length portrait, resplendent in red velvet and plumed hat. He cast a critical glance at the younger Charles, whose flushed face gave evidence that he had been hospitably keeping his guest company in his potations.

“A better nose, anyway,” the Earl murmured, as though to himself. “His mother was Polish.”

It was growing late, and the candles in the silver candelabra were beginning to gutter and go out before the gentlefolk of Edinburgh had had their fill of wine and dancing. Don Francisco, possibly not as accustomed as Charles to unrestrained drinking, was nodding into his ruff.

Jamie, having with an obvious expression of relief restored the last Miss Williams to her father for the journey home, came to join me in the corner where I had found a seat that enabled me to slip off my shoes under cover of my spreading skirts. I hoped I wouldn’t have to put them on again in a hurry.

Jamie sat down on a vacant seat beside me, mopping his glowing face with a large white handkerchief. He reached past me to the small table, where a tray with a few leftover cakes was sitting.

“I’m fair starved,” he said. “Dancing gives ye a terrible appetite, and the talking’s worse.” He popped a whole cake into his mouth at once, chewed it briefly, and reached for another.

I saw Prince Charles bend over the slumped form of the guest of honor and shake him by the shoulder, to little effect. The Spanish envoy’s head was fallen back and his mouth was slack beneath the drooping mustache. His Highness stood, rather unsteadily, and glanced about for help, but Sheridan and Tullibardine, both elderly gentlemen, had fallen asleep themselves, leaning companionably together like a couple of old village sots in lace and velvet.

“Maybe you’d better give His Highness a hand?” I suggested.

“Mmphm.”

Resigned, Jamie swallowed the rest of his cake, but before he could rise, I saw the younger Simpson, who had taken quick note of the situation, nudge his father in the ribs.

Senior advanced and bowed ceremoniously to Prince Charles, then, before the glazed prince could respond, the swordmakers had the Spanish envoy by wrists and ankles. With a heave of forge-toughened muscles, they lifted him from his seat, and bore him away, gently swinging him between them like some specimen of big game. They disappeared through the door at the far end of the hall, followed unsteadily by His Highness.

This rather unceremonious departure signaled the end of the ball.

The other guests began to relax and move about, the ladies disappearing into an anteroom to retrieve shawls and cloaks, the gentlemen standing about in small, impatient knots, exchanging complaints about the time the women were taking to make ready.

As we were housed in Holyrood, we left by the other door, at the north end of the gallery, going through the morning and evening drawing rooms to the main staircase.

The landing and the soaring stairwell were lined with tapestries, their figures dim and silvery in candlelight. And below them stood the giant form of Angus Mhor, his shadow huge on the wall, wavering like one of the tapestry figures as they shimmered in the draft.

“My master is dead,” he said.

“His Highness said,” Jamie reported, “that perhaps it was as well.” He spoke with a tone of sarcastic bitterness.

“Because of Dougal,” he added, seeing my shocked bewilderment at this statement. “Dougal has always been more than willing to join His Highness in the field. Now Colum’s gone, Dougal is chief. And so the MacKenzies of Leoch will march with the Highland army,” he said softly, “to victory – or not.”

The lines of grief and weariness were cut deep into his face, and he didn’t resist as I moved behind him and laid my hands on the broad swell of his shoulders. He made a small sound of incoherent relief as my fingertips pressed hard into the muscles at the base of his neck, and let his head fall forward, resting on his folded arms. He was seated before the table in our room, and piles of letters and dispatches lay neatly stacked around him. Amid the documents lay a small notebook, rather worn, bound in red morocco leather. Colum’s diary, which Jamie had taken from his uncle’s rooms in hopes that it would contain a recent entry confirming Colum’s decision not to support the Jacobite cause.

“Not that it would likely sway Dougal,” he had said, grimly thumbing the close-written pages, “but there’s nothing else to try.”

In the event, though, there had been nothing in Colum’s diary for the last three days, save one brief entry, clearly made upon his return from the churchyard the day before.

Met with young Jamie and his wife. Have made my peace with Ellen at last. And that was, of course, important – to Colum, to Jamie, and possibly to Ellen – but of little use in swaying the convictions of Dougal MacKenzie.

Jamie straightened up after a moment and turned to me. His eyes were dark with worry and resignation.

“What it means is that now we are committed to him, Claire – to Charles, I mean. There’s less choice than there ever was. We must try to assure his victory.”

My mouth felt dry with too much wine. I licked my lips before answering, to moisten them.

“I suppose so. Damn! Why couldn’t Colum have waited a little longer? Just ’til the morning, when he could have seen Charles?”

Jamie smiled lopsidedly.

“I dinna suppose he had so much to say about it, Sassenach. Few men get to choose the hour of their death.”

“Colum meant to.” I had been of two minds whether to tell Jamie what had passed between me and Colum at our first meeting in Holyrood, but now there was no point in keeping Colum’s secrets.

Jamie shook his head in disbelief and sighed, his shoulders slumping under the revelation that Colum had meant to take his own life.

“I wonder then,” he murmured, half to himself. “Was it a sign, do ye think, Claire?”

“A sign?”

“Colum’s death now, before he could do as he meant to and refuse Charles’s plea for help. Is it a sign that Charles is destined to win his fight?”

I remembered my last sight of Colum. Death had come for him as he sat in bed, a glass of brandy untouched near his hand. He had met it as he wished, then, clearheaded and alert; his head had fallen back, but his eyes were wide open, dulled to the sights he had left behind. His mouth was pressed tight, the habitual lines carved deep from nose to chin. The pain that was his constant companion had accompanied him as far as it could.

“God knows,” I said at last.

“Aye?” he said, voice once more muffled in his arms. “Aye, well. I hope somebody does.”

38 A BARGAIN WITH THE DEVIL

Catarrh settled on Edinburgh like the cloud of cold rain that masked the Castle from sight on its hill. Water ran day and night in the streets, and if the cobbles were temporarily clean of sewage, the relief from stench was more than made up for by the splatter of expectorations that slimed every close and wynd, and the choking cloud of fireplace smoke that filled every room from waist-height to ceiling.

Cold and miserable as the weather was outside, I found myself spending a good deal of time walking the grounds of Holyrood and the Canongate. A faceful of rain seemed preferable to lungfuls of woodsmoke and germ-filled air indoors. The sounds of coughing and sneezing rang through the Palace, though the constraint of His Highness’s genteel presence caused most hawking sufferers to spit into filthy handerchiefs or the Delft-lined fireplaces, rather than on the polished Scotch oak floors.

The light failed early at this time of year, and I turned back, halfway up the High Street, in order to reach Holyrood before dark. I had no fear at all of assault in the darkness; even had I not been known by now to all the Jacobite troops occupying the city, the prevailing horror of fresh air kept everyone indoors.

Men still well enough to leave their homes on business completed their errands with dispatch before diving thankfully into the smoke-filled sanctuary of Jenny Ha’s tavern, and stayed there, nestled cozily into warm airlessness, where the smell of damp wool, unwashed bodies, whisky, and ale nearly succeeded in overcoming the reek of the stove.

My only fear was of losing my footing in the dark and breaking an ankle on the slippery cobbles. The city was lit only by the feeble lanterns of the town watchmen, and these had a disconcerting habit of ducking from doorway to doorway, appearing and disappearing like fireflies. And sometimes disappearing altogether for half an hour at a time, as the lantern-bearer darted into The World’s End at the bottom of the Canongate for a life-saving draught of hot ale.

I eyed the faint glow over the Canongate kirk, estimating how much time remained ’til dark. With luck, I might have time to stop at Mr. Haugh’s apothecary’s shop. While boasting nothing of the variety to be found in Raymond’s Paris emporium, Mr. Haugh did a sound trade in horse chestnuts and slippery-elm bark, and usually was able to provide me with peppermint and barberry, as well. At this time of year, his chief income was derived from the sale of camphor balls, considered a sovereign remedy for colds, catarrh, and consumption. If it was no more effective than modern cold remedies, I reflected, it was no worse, and at least smelled invigoratingly healthy.

Despite the prevalence of red noses and white faces, parties were held at the palace several nights a week, as the noblesse of Edinburgh welcomed their Prince with enthusiasm. Another two hours, and the lanterns of servants accompanying ball-goers would start to flicker in the High Street.

I sighed at the thought of another ball, attended by sneezing gallants, paying compliments in phlegm-thickened voices. Perhaps I’d better add some garlic to the list; worn in a silver pomander-locket about the neck, it was supposed to ward off disease. What it actually did do, I supposed, was to keep disease-ridden companions at a safe distance – equally satisfactory, from my point of view.

The city was occupied by Charles’s troops, and the English, while not besieged, were at least sequestered in the Castle above. Still, news – of dubious veracity – tended to leak in both directions. According to Mr. Haugh, the most recent rumor held that the Duke of Cumberland was gathering troops south of Perth, with the intent of marching north almost immediately. I hadn’t any idea whether this was true; I doubted it, in fact, recalling no mention of Cumberland’s activities much before the spring of 1746, which hadn’t arrived. Still, I could hardly ignore the rumor.

The sentry at the gate nodded me in, coughing. The sound was taken up by the guards stationed down the hallways and on the landings. Resisting the impulse to wave my basket of garlic at them like a censer as I passed, I made my way upstairs to the afternoon drawing room, where I was admitted without question.

I found His Highness with Jamie, Aeneas MacDonald, O’Sullivan, His Highness’s secretary, and a saturnine man named Francis Townsend, who was lately much in His Highness’s good graces. Most of them were red-nosed and sneezing, and splattered phlegm smeared the hearth before the gracious mantel. I cast a sharp look at Jamie, who was slumped wearily in his chair, whitefaced and drooping.

Accustomed to my forays into the city, and eager for any intelligence regarding the English movements, the men heard me out with great attention.

“We are indebted greatly to you for your news, Mistress Fraser,” said His Highness, with a gracious bow and a smile. “You must tell me if there some way in which I might repay your generous service.”

“There is,” I said, seizing the opportunity. “I want to take my husband home to bed. Now.”

The Prince’s eyes bulged slightly, but he recovered himself quickly. Not so restrained, Aeneas MacDonald broke out into a fit of suspiciously strangled coughing. Jamie’s white face blazed suddenly crimson. He sneezed, and buried his countenance in a handkerchief, blue eyes shooting sparks at me over its folds.

“Ah… your husband,” said Charles, rallying gallantly to the challenge. “Um…” A soft pink blush began to tint his cheeks.

“He’s ill,” I said, with some asperity. “Surely you can see that? I want him to go to bed and rest.”

“Oh, rest,” murmured MacDonald, as though to himself.

I searched for some sufficiently courtly words.

“I should be sorry to deprive Your Highness temporarily of my husband’s attendance, but if he isn’t allowed to take sufficient rest, he isn’t likely to go on attending you much longer.”

Charles, recovered from his momentary discomposure, seemed now to be finding Jamie’s patent discomfiture entertaining.

“To be sure,” he said, eyeing Jamie, whose complexion had faded now into a sort of mottled pallor. “We should dislike exceedingly the contemplation of such a prospect as you wish, Madam.” He inclined his head in my direction. “It shall be as you wish, Madam. Cher James is excused from attendance upon our person until he shall be recovering. By all means, take your husband to your rooms at once, and, er… undertake what cure seems… ah… fitting.” The corner of the Prince’s mouth twitched suddenly, and pulling a large handkerchief from his pocket, he followed Jamie’s example and buried the lower half of his face, coughing delicately.

“Best take care, Highness,” MacDonald advised somewhat caustically. “You may catch Mr. Fraser’s ailment.”

“One could wish to have half Mr. Fraser’s complaint,” murmured Francis Townsend, with no attempt at concealing the sardonic smile that made him look like a fox in a hen coop.

Jamie, now bearing a strong resemblance to a frostbitten tomato, rose abruptly, bowed to the Prince with a brief “I thank ye, Highness,” and headed for the door, clutching me by the arm.

“Let go,” I snarled as we swept past the guards in the anteroom. “You’re breaking my arm.”

“Good,” he muttered. “As soon as I’ve got ye in private, I’m going to break your neck.” But I caught sight of the curl of his mouth, and knew the gruffness was only a facade.

Once in our apartment, with the door safely shut, he pulled me to him, leaned against the door and laughed, his cheek pressed to the top of my head.

“Thank ye, Sassenach,” he said, wheezing slightly.

“You’re not angry?” I asked, voice somewhat muffled in his shirtfront. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“Nay, I’m no minding it.” he said, releasing me. “God, I wouldna ha’ cared if ye’d said ye meant to set me on fire in the Great Gallery, so long as I could leave His Highness and come to rest for a bit. I’m tired to death of the man, and every muscle I’ve got is aching.” A sudden spasm of coughing shook his frame, and he leaned against the door once more, this time for support.

“Are you all right?” I stretched up on tiptoe to feel his forehead. I wasn’t surprised, but was somewhat alarmed, to feel how hot his skin was beneath my palm.

“You,” I said accusingly, “have a fever!”

“Aye well, everyone’s got a fever, Sassenach,” he said, a bit crossly. “Only some are hotter than others, no?”

“Don’t quibble,” I said, relieved that he still felt well enough to chop logic. “Take off your clothes. And don’t say it,” I added crisply, seeing the grin forming as he opened his mouth to reply. “I have no designs whatever on your disease-ridden carcass, beyond getting it into a nightshirt.”

“Oh, aye? Ye dinna think I’d benefit from the exercise?” He teased, beginning to unfasten his shirt. “I thought ye said exercise was healthy.” His laugh turned suddenly to an attack of hoarse coughing that left him breathless and flushed. He dropped the shirt on the floor, and almost immediately began to shiver with chill.

“Much too healthy for you, my lad.” I yanked the thick woolen nightshirt over his head, leaving him to struggle into it as I got him out of kilt, shoes, and stockings. “Christ, your feet are like ice!”

“You could… warm them… for me.” But the words were forced out between chattering teeth, and he made no protest when I steered him toward the bed.

He was shaking too hard to speak by the time I had snatched a hot brick from the fire with tongs, wrapped it in flannel, and thrust it in at his feet.

The chill was hard but brief, and he lay still again by the time I had set a pan of water to steep with a handful of peppermint and black currant.

“What’s that?” he asked, suspiciously, sniffing the air as I opened another jar from my basket. “Ye dinna mean me to drink it, I hope? It smells like a duck that’s been hung ower-long.”

“You’re close,” I said. “It’s goose grease mixed with camphor. I’m going to rub your chest with it.”

“No!” He snatched the covers protectively up beneath his chin.

“Yes,” I said firmly, advancing with purpose.

In the midst of my labors, I became aware that we had an audience. Fergus stood on the far side of the bed, watching the proceedings with fascination, his nose running freely. I removed my knee from Jamie’s abdomen and reached for a handkerchief.

“And what are you doing here?” Jamie demanded, trying to yank the front of his nightshirt back into place.

Not noticeably disconcerted by the unfriendly tone of this greeting, Fergus ignored the proffered handkerchief and wiped his nose on his sleeve, meanwhile staring with round-eyed admiration at the broad expanse of muscular, gleaming chest on display.

“The skinny milord sent me to fetch a packet he says you have for him. Do all Scotsmen have such quantities of hair upon their chests, milord?”

“Christ! I forgot all about the dispatches. Wait, I’ll take them to Cameron myself.” Jamie began to struggle up in bed, a process that brought his nose close to the site of my recent endeavors.

“Phew!” He flapped the nightshirt in an effort to dispel the penetrating aroma, and glared accusingly at me. “How am I to get this reek off me? D’ye expect me to go out in company smellin’ like a dead goose, Sassenach?”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “I expect you to lie quietly in bed and rest, or you’ll be a dead goose.” I uncorked a fairly high-caliber glare of my own.

“I can carry the package, milord,” Fergus was assuring him.

“You will do nothing of the kind,” I said, noting the boy’s flushed cheeks and overbright eyes. I put a hand to his forehead.

“Don’t tell me,” said Jamie sarcastically. “He’s got a fever?”

“Yes, he has.”

“Ha,” he said to Fergus with gloomy satisfaction. “Now you’re for it. See how you like bein’ basted.”

A short period of intense effort saw Fergus tucked up in his pallet by the fire, goose grease and medicinal hot tea administered lavishly all round, and a clean handkerchief deposited beneath the chin of each sufferer.

“There,” I said, fastidiously rinsing my hands in the basin. “Now, I will take this precious packet of dispatches across to Mr. Cameron. You will both rest, drink hot tea, rest, blow your nose, and rest, in that order. Got it, troops?”

The tip of a long, reddened nose was barely visible above the bedclothes. It oscillated slowly back and forth as Jamie shook his head.

“Drunk wi’ power,” he remarked disapprovingly to the ceiling. “Verra unwomanly attitude, that.”

I dropped a kiss on his hot forehead and swung my cloak down from its hook.

“How little you know of women, my love,” I said.

Ewan Cameron was in charge of what passed for intelligence operations at Holyrood. His quarters were at the end of the west wing, tucked away near the kitchens. On purpose, I suspected, having witnessed the man’s appetite in action. Possibly a tapeworm, I thought, viewing the officer’s cadaverous countenance as he opened the packet and scanned the dispatches.

“All in order?” I asked after a moment. I had to repress the automatic urge to add “sir.”

Startled from his train of thought, he jerked his head up from the dispatches and blinked at me.

“Um? Oh!” Recalled to himself, he smiled and hastened to make apologies.

“I’m sorry, Mistress Fraser. How impolite of me to forget myself and leave you standing there. Yes, everything appears to be in order – most interesting,” he murmured to himself. Then, snapping back to an awareness of me, “Would you be so kind as to tell your husband that I wish to discuss these with him as soon as possible? I understand that he is unwell,” he added delicately, carefully avoiding my eye. Apparently it hadn’t taken Aeneas MacDonald long to relay an account of my interview with the Prince.

“He is,” I said unhelpfully. The last thing I wanted was Jamie leaving his bed and sitting up poring over intelligence dispatches all night with Cameron and Lochiel. That would be nearly as bad as staying up dancing all night with the ladies of Edinburgh. Well, possibly not quite as bad, I amended to myself, recalling the three Misses Williams.

“I’m sure he will attend upon you as soon as he’s able,” I said, pulling the edges of the cloak together. “I’ll tell him.” And I would – tomorrow. Or possibly the next day. Wherever the English forces presently were, I was positive they weren’t within a hundred miles of Edinburgh.

A quick peek into the bedroom upon my return showed two lumps, immobile beneath the bedclothes, and the sounds of breathing – slow and regular, if a trifle congested – filled the room. Reassured, I removed my cloak and sat down in the sitting room with a preventative cup of hot tea, to which I had added a fair dollop of medicinal brandy.

Sipping slowly, I felt the liquid heat flow down the center of my chest, spread comfortably through my abdomen, and begin working its steady way down toward my toes, quick-frozen after a dash across the courtyard, undertaken in preference to the circuitous inside passage with its endless stairs and turnings.

I held the cup below my chin, inhaling the pleasant, bitter smell, feeling the heated fumes of the brandy clarify my sinuses. Sniffing, it occurred to me to wonder exactly why, in a city and a building plagued with colds and influenza, my own sinuses remained unclogged.

In fact, aside from the childbed fever, I had not been ill once since my passage through the stone circle. That was odd, I thought; given the standards of hygiene and sanitation, and the crowded conditions in which we frequently lived, I ought surely to have come down at least with a case of sniffles by this time. But I remained as disgustingly healthy as always.

Plainly I was not immune to all diseases, or I would not have had the fever. But the common communicable ones? Some were explainable on the basis of vaccination, of course. I couldn’t, for example, catch smallpox, typhus, cholera, or yellow fever. Not that yellow fever was likely, but still. I set down the cup and felt my left arm, through the cloth of the sleeve. The vaccination scar had faded with time, but was still prominent enough to be detectable; a roughly circular patch of pitted skin, perhaps a half-inch in diameter.

I shuddered briefly, reminded again of Geillis Duncan, then pushed the thought away, diving back into a contemplation of my state of health in order to avoid thinking either of the woman who had gone to a death by fire, or of Colum MacKenzie, the man who had sent her there.

The cup was nearly empty, and I rose to refill it, thinking. An acquired immunity, perhaps? I had learned in nurses’ training that colds are caused by innumerable viruses, each distinct and ever-evolving. Once exposed to a particular virus, the instructor had explained, you became immune to it. You continued to catch cold as you encountered new and different viruses, but the chances of meeting something you hadn’t been exposed to before became smaller as you got older. So, he had said, while children caught an average of six colds per year, people in middle age caught only two, and elderly folk might go for years between colds, only because they had already met most of the common viruses and become immune.

Now there was a possibility, I thought. What if some types of immunity became hereditary, as viruses and people co-evolved? Antibodies to many diseases could be passed from mother to child, I knew that. Via the placenta or the breast milk, so that the child was immune – temporarily – to any disease to which the mother had been exposed. Perhaps I never caught cold because I harbored ancestral antibodies to eighteenth-century viruses – benefiting from the colds caught by all my ancestors for the past two hundred years?

I was pondering this entertaining idea, so caught up in it that I hadn’t bothered to sit down, but was sipping my tea standing in the middle of the room, when a soft knock sounded on the door.

I sighed impatiently, annoyed at being distracted. I didn’t bother to set the cup down, but came to the door prepared to receive – and repel – the expected inquiries about Jamie’s health. Likely Cameron had come across an unclear passage in a dispatch, or His Highness had thought better of his generosity in dismissing Jamie from attendance at the ball. Well, they would get him out of bed tonight only over my dead and trampled body.

I yanked open the door, and the words of greeting died in my throat. Jack Randall stood in the shadows of the doorway.

The wetness of the spilled tea soaking through my skirt brought me to my senses, but he had already stepped inside. He looked me up and down with his usual air of disdainful appraisal, then glanced at the closed bedroom door.

“You are alone?”

“Yes!”

The hazel glance flickered back and forth between me and the door, assessing my truthfulness. His face was lined from ill health, pale from poor nutrition and a winter spent indoors, but showed no diminution of alertness. The quick, ruthless brain had retreated a bit further back, behind the curtain of those ice-glazed eyes, but it was still there; no doubt of that.

Making his decision, he grasped me by the arm, scooping up my discarded cloak with his other hand.

“Come with me.”

I would have allowed him to chop me in pieces before I made a sound that would cause the bedroom door to open.

We were halfway down the corridor outside before I felt it safe to speak. There were no guards stationed within the confines of the staff quarters, but the grounds were heavily patrolled. He couldn’t hope to get me through the rockery or the side gates without detection, let alone through the main palace entrance. Therefore, whatever he wanted with me, it must be a business that could be conducted within the precincts of Holyrood.

Murder, perhaps, in revenge for the injury Jamie had done him? Stomach lurching at the thought, I inspected him as closely as I could as we walked swiftly through the pools of light cast from the candleholders on the wall. Not intended for decoration or for graciousness, the candles in this part of the palace were small and widely spaced and the flames feeble, meant only to provide sufficient light to assist visitors returning to their chambers.

He wasn’t in uniform, and appeared completely unarmed. He was dressed in nondescript homespun, with a thick coat over plain brown breeks and hose. Nothing but the straightness of his carriage and the arrogant tilt of his unwigged head gave evidence of his identity – he could easily have slipped inside the grounds with one of the parties arriving for the ball, posing as a servant.

No, I decided, glancing warily at him as we passed from dimness to light, he wasn’t armed, though his hand clamped around my arm was hard as iron. Still, if it was strangling he had in mind, he wouldn’t find me an easy victim; I was nearly as tall as he was, and a good deal better nourished.

As though he sensed my thought, he paused near the end of the corridor and turned me to face him, hands tight above my elbows.

“I mean you no harm,” he said, low-voiced but firm.

“Tell me another one,” I said, estimating the chances of anyone hearing me if I screamed here. I knew there would be a guard at the foot of the stair, but that was on the other side of two doors, a short landing, and a long staircase.

On the other hand, it was stalemate. If he couldn’t take me farther, neither could I summon aid where I was. This end of the corridor was sparsely populated, and such residents as there were would undoubtedly be in the other wing now, either attending the ball or serving at it.

He spoke impatiently.

“Don’t be idiotic. If I wished to kill you, I could do it here. It would be a great deal safer than taking you outside. For that matter,” he added, “if I meant you harm, inside or out, why should I have brought your cloak?” He lifted the garment from his arm in illustration.

“How the hell should I know?” I said, though it seemed a definite point. “Why did you bring it?”

“Because I wish you to go outside with me. I have a proposal to make to you, and I will brook no chance of being overheard.” He glanced toward the door at the end of the corridor. Like all the others in Holyrood, it was constructed in the cross-and-Book style, the upper four panels arranged to form a cross, the lower two panels standing tall, forming the likeness of an open Bible. Holyrood had once been an abbey.

“Will you come into the church? We can speak there without fear of interruption.” This was true; the church adjoining the palace, part of the original Abbey, was abandoned, rendered unsafe by lack of maintenance over the years. I hesitated, wondering what to do.

“Think, woman!” He gave me a slight shake, then released me and stood back. The candlelight silhouetted him, so that his features were no more than a dark blur facing me. “Why should I take the risk of entering the palace?”

This was a good question. Once he had left the shelter of the Castle in disguise, the streets of Edinburgh were open to him. He could have lurked about the alleys and wynds until he caught sight of me on my daily expeditions, and waylaid me there. The only possible reason not to do so was the one he gave; he needed to speak to me without risk of being overseen or overheard.

He saw conclusion dawn in my face, and his shoulders relaxed slightly. He spread the cloak, holding it for me.

“You have my word that you will return from our conversation unmolested, Madam.”

I tried to read his expression, but nothing showed on the thin, chiseled features. The eyes were steady, and told me no more than would my own, seen in a looking glass.

I reached for the cloak.

“All right,” I said.

We went out into the dimness of the rock garden, passing the sentry with no more than a nod. He recognized me, and it was not unusual for me to go out at night, to attend to an urgent case of sickness in the city. The guard glanced sharply at Jack Randall – it was usually Murtagh who accompanied me, if Jamie could not – but dressed as he was, there was no hint of the Captain’s real identity. He returned the guard’s glance with indifference, and the door of the palace closed behind us, leaving us in the chill dark outside.

It had been raining earlier, but the storm was breaking up. Thick clouds shredded and flew overhead, driven by a wind that whipped aside my cloak and plastered my skirt to my legs.

“This way.” I clutched the heavy velvet close around me, bent my head against the wind, and followed Jack Randall’s lean figure through the path of the rockery.

We emerged at the lower end, and after a pause for a quick look around, crossed rapidly across the grass to the portal of the church.

The door had warped and hung ajar; it had been disused for several years because of structural faults that made the building dangerous, and no one had troubled to repair it. I kicked my way through a barrier of dead leaves and rubbish, ducking from the flickering moonlight of the palace’s back garden into the absolute darkness of the church.

Or not quite absolute; as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I could see the tall lines of the pillars that marched down each side of the nave, and the delicate stonework of the enormous window at the far end, glass mostly gone.

A movement in the shadows showed me where Randall had gone; I turned between the pillars and found him in a space where a recess once used as a baptismal font had left a stone ledge along the wall. To either side were pale blotches on the walls; the memorial tablets of those buried in the church. Others lay flat, embedded in the floor on either side of the central aisle, the names blurred by the traffic of feet.

“All right,” I said. “We can’t be overheard now. What do you want of me?”

“Your skill as a physician, and your complete discretion. In exchange for such information as I possess regarding the movements and plans of the Elector’s troops,” he answered promptly.

That rather took my breath away. Whatever I had been expecting, it wasn’t this. He couldn’t possibly mean…

“You’re looking for medical treatment?” I asked, making no effort to disguise the mingled horror and amazement in my voice. “From me? I understood that you… er, I mean…” With a major effort of will, I stopped myself floundering and said firmly, “Surely you have already received whatever medical treatment is possible? You appear to be in reasonably good condition.” Externally, at least. I bit my lip, suppressing an urge toward hysteria.

“I am informed that I am fortunate to be alive, Madam,” he answered coldly. “The point is debatable.” He set the lantern in a niche in the wall, where the scooped basin of a piscina lay dry and empty in its recess.

“I assume your inquiry to be motivated by medical curiosity rather than concern for my welfare,” he went on. The lanternlight, shed at waist height, illuminated him from the ribs downward, leaving head and shoulders hidden. He laid a hand on the waistband of his breeches, turning slightly toward me.

“Do you wish to inspect the injury, in order to judge the effectiveness of treatment?” The shadows hid his face, but the splinters of ice in his voice were tipped with poison.

“Perhaps later,” I said, as cool as he. “If not yourself, for whom do you seek my skill?”

He hesitated, but it was far too late for reticence.

“For my brother.”

“Your brother?” I couldn’t keep the shock from my voice. “Alexander?”

“Since my elder brother William is, so far as I know, virtuously engaged in stewardship of the family estates in Sussex, and in need of no assistance,” he said dryly. “Yes, my brother Alex.”

I spread my hands on the cold stone of a sarcophagus to steady myself.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

It was a simple enough story, and a sad one. Had it been anyone other than Jonathan Randall who told it, I might have found myself prey to sympathy.

Deprived of his employment with the Duke of Sandringham because of the scandal over Mary Hawkins, and too frail of health to secure another appointment, Alexander Randall had been forced to seek aid from his brothers.

“William sent him two pounds and a letter of earnest exhortations.” Jack Randall leaned back against the wall, crossing his ankles. “William is a very earnest sort, I’m afraid. But he wasn’t prepared to have Alex come home to Sussex. William’s wife is a bit… extreme, shall we say? in her religious opinions.” There was a wisp of amusement in his voice that suddenly made me like him for a moment. In different circumstances, might he have been like the great-grandson he resembled?

The sudden thought of Frank so unsettled me that I missed his next remark.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?” I clutched my left hand with my right, fingers pinching tight on my gold wedding ring. Frank was gone. I must stop thinking of him.

“I said that I had procured rooms for Alex near the Castle, so that I might look in on him myself, as my funds did not stretch far enough to allow of employing a proper servant for him.”

But the occupation of Edinburgh had of course made such attendance difficult, and Alex Randall had been left more or less to his own devices for the past month, aside from the intermittent offices of a woman who came in to clean now and then. In ill health to start with, his condition had been worsened by cold weather, poor diet, and squalid conditions until, seriously alarmed, Jack Randall had been moved to seek my help. And to offer for that help, the betrayal of his King.

“Why would you come to me?” I asked at last, turning from the plaque.

He looked faintly surprised.

“Because of who you are.” His lips curved in a slight, self-mocking smile. If one seeks to sell one’s soul, is it not proper to go to the powers of darkness?”

“You really think that I’m a power of darkness, do you?” Plainly he did; he was more than capable of mockery, but there had been none in his original proposal.

“Aside from the stories about you in Paris, you told me so yourself,” he pointed out. “When I let you go from Wentworth.” He turned in the dark, shifting himself on the stone ledge.

“That was a serious mistake,” he said softly. “You should never have left that place alive, dangerous creature. And yet I had no choice; your life was the price he set. And I would have paid still higher stakes than that, for what he gave me.”

I made a slight hissing noise, which I muffled at once, but too late to stop him hearing me. He half-sat on the ledge, one hip resting on the stone, one leg stretched down to balance him. The moon broke through the scudding clouds outside, backlighting him through the broken window. In the dimness, head half-turned and the lines of cruelty around his mouth erased by darkness, I could mistake him again, as I had once before, for a man I had loved. For Frank.

Yet I had betrayed that man; because of my choice, that man would never be. For the sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children… and thou shalt destroy him, root and branch, so that his name shall no more be known among the tribes of Israel.

“Did he tell you?” the light, pleasant voice asked from the shadows. “Did he ever tell you all the things that passed between us, him and me, in that small room at Wentworth?” Through my shock and rage, I noticed that he obeyed Jamie’s injunction; not once did he use his name. “He.” “Him.” Never “Jamie.” That was mine.

My teeth were clenched tight, but I forced the words through them.

“He told me. Everything.”

He made a small sound, half a sigh.

“Whether the idea pleases you or not, my dear, we are linked, you and I. I cannot say it pleases me, but I admit the truth of it. You know, as I do, the touch of his skin – so warm, is he not? Almost as though he burned from within. You know the smell of his sweat and the roughness of the hairs on his thighs. You know the sound that he makes at the last, when he has lost himself. So do I.”

“Be quiet,” I said. “Be still!” He ignored me, leaning back, speaking thoughtfully, as though to himself. I recognized, with a fresh burst of rage, the impulse that led him to this – not the intention, as I had thought, to upset me, but an overwhelming urge to talk of a beloved; to rehearse aloud and live again vanished details. For after all, to whom might he speak of Jamie in this way, but to me?

“I am leaving!” I said loudly, and whirled on my heel.

“Will you leave?” said the calm voice behind me. “I can deliver General Hawley into your hands. Or you can let him take the Scottish army. Your choice, Madam.”

I had the strong urge to reply that General Hawley wasn’t worth it. But I thought of the Scottish chieftains now quartered in Holyroodhouse – Kilmarnock and Balmerino and Lochiel, only a few feet away on the other side of the abbey wall. Of Jamie himself. Of the thousands of clansmen they led. Was the chance of victory worth the sacrifice of my feelings? And was this the turning point, again a place of choice? If I didn’t listen, if I didn’t accept the bargain Randall proposed, what then?

I turned, slowly. “Talk, then,” I said. “If you must.” He seemed unmoved by my anger, and unworried by the possibility that I would refuse him. The voice in the dark church was even, controlled as a lecturer’s.

“I wonder, you know,” he said. “Whether you have had from him as much as I?” He tilted his head to one side, sharp features coming into focus as he moved out of the shadow. The fugitive light caught him momentarily from the side, lighting the pale hazel of his eyes and making them shine, like those of a beast glimpsed hiding in the bushes.

The note of triumph in his voice was faint, but unmistakable.

“I,” he said softly, “I have had him as you could never have him. You are a woman; you cannot understand, even witch as you are. I have held the soul of his manhood, have taken from him what he has taken from me. I know him, as he now knows me. We are bound, he and I, by blood.”

I give ye my Body, that we Two may be One…

“You choose a very odd way of seeking my help,” I said, my voice shaking. My hands were clenched in the folds of my skirt, the fabric cold and bunched between my fingers.

“Do I? I think it best you understand, Madam. I do not beseech your pity, do not call upon your power as a man might seek mercy from a woman, depending upon what people call womanly sympathy. For that cause, you might come to my brother on his own account.” A lock of dark hair fell loose across his forehead; he brushed it back with one hand.

“I prefer that it be a straight bargain made between us, Madam; of service rendered and price paid – for realize, Madam, that my feelings toward you are much as yours toward me must be.”

That was a shock; while I struggled to find an answer, he went on.

“We are linked, you and I, through the body of one man – through him. I would have no such link formed through the body of my brother; I seek your help to heal his body, but I take no risk that his soul shall fall prey to you. Tell me, then; is the price I offer acceptable to you?”

I turned away from him and walked down the center of the echoing nave. I was shaking so hard that my steps felt uncertain, and the shock of the hard stone beneath my soles jolted me. The tracery of the great window over the disused altar stood black against the white of racing clouds, and dim shafts of moonlight lit my path.

At the end of the nave, as far as I could get from him, I stopped and pressed my hands against the wall for support. It was too dark even to see the letters of the marble tablet under my hands, but I could feel the cool, sharp lines of the carving. The curve of a small skull, resting on crossed thigh bones, a pious version of the jolly Roger. I let my head fall forward, forehead to forehead with the invisible skull, smooth as bone against my skin.

I waited, eyes closed, for my gorge to subside, and the heated pulse that throbbed in my temples to cool.

It makes no difference, I told myself. No matter what he is. No matter what he says.

We are linked, you and I, through the body of one man… Yes, but not through Jamie. Not through him! I insisted, to him, to myself. Yes, you took him, you bastard! But I took him back, I freed him from you. You have no part of him! But the sweat that trickled down my ribs and the sound of my own sobbing breath belied my conviction.

Was this the price I must pay for the loss of Frank? A thousand lives that might be saved, perhaps, in compensation for that one loss?

The dark mass of the altar loomed to my right, and I wished with all my heart that there might be some presence there, whatever its nature; something to turn to for an answer. But there was no one here in Holyrood; no one but me. The spirits of the dead kept their own counsel, silent in the stones of wall and floor.

I tried to put Jack Randall out of my mind. If it weren’t him, if it were any other man who asked, would I go? There was Alex Randall to be considered, all other things aside. “For that cause, you might come to my brother on his own account,” the Captain had said. And of course I would. Whatever I might offer him in the way of healing, could I withhold it because of the man who asked it?

It was a long time before I straightened, pushing myself wearily erect, my hands damp and slick on the curve of the skull. I felt drained and weak, my neck aching and my head heavy, as though the sickness in the city had laid its hand on me after all.

He was still there, patient in the cold dark.

“Yes,” I said abruptly, as soon as I came within speaking distance. “All right. I’ll come tomorrow, in the forenoon. Where?”

“Ladywalk Wynd,” he said. “You know it?”

“Yes.” Edinburgh was a small city – no more than the single High Street, with the tiny, ill-lit wynds and closes opening off it. Ladywalk Wynd was one of the poorer ones.

“I will meet you there,” he said. “I shall have the information for you.” He slid to his feet and took a step forward, then stood, waiting for me to move. I saw that he didn’t want to pass close by me, in order to reach the door.

“Afraid of me, are you?” I said, with a humorless laugh. “Think I’ll turn you into a toadstool?”

“No,” he said, surveying me calmly. “I do not fear you, Madam. You cannot have it both ways, you know. You sought to terrify me at Wentworth, by giving me the day of my death. But having told me that, you cannot now threaten me, for if I shall die in April of next year, you cannot harm me now, can you?”

Had I had a knife with me, I might have shown him otherwise, in a soul-satisfying moment of impulse. But the doom of prophecy lay on me, and the weight of a thousand Scottish lives. He was safe from me.

“I keep my distance, Madam,” he said, “merely because I would prefer to take no chance of touching you.”

I laughed once more, this time genuinely.

“And that, Captain,” I said, “is an impulse with which I am entirely in sympathy.” I turned and left the church, leaving him to follow as he would.

I had no need to ask or to wonder whether he would keep his word. He had freed me once from Wentworth, because he had given his word to do so. His word, once given, was his bond. Jack Randall was a gentleman.

What did you feel, when I gave my body to Jack Randall? Jamie had asked me.

Rage, I had said. Sickness. Horror.

I leaned against the door of the sitting room, feeling them all again. The fire had died out and the room was cold. The smell of camphorated goose grease tingled in my nostrils. It was quiet, save for the heavy rasp of breathing from the bed, and the faint sound of the wind, passing by the six-foot walls.

I knelt at the hearth and began to rebuild the fire. It had gone out completely, and I pushed back the half-burnt log and brushed the ashes away before breaking the kindling into a small heap in the center of the hearthstone. We had wood fires in Holyrood, not peat. Unfortunate, I thought; a peat fire wouldn’t have gone out so easily.

My hands shook a little, and I dropped the flint box twice before I succeeded in striking a spark. The cold, I said to myself. It was very cold in here.

Did he tell you all the things that passed between us? said Jack Randall’s mocking voice.

“All I need to know,” I muttered to myself, touching a paper spill to the tiny flame and carrying it from point to point, setting the tinder aglow in half a dozen spots. One at a time, I added small sticks, poking each one into the flame and holding it there until the fire caught. When the pile of kindling was burning merrily, I reached back and caught the end of the big log, lifting it carefully into the heart of the fire. It was pinewood; green, but with a little sap, bubbling from a split in the wood in a tiny golden bead.

Crystallized and frozen with age, it would make a drop of amber, hard and permanent as gemstone. Now, it glowed for a moment with the sudden heat, popped and exploded in a tiny shower of sparks, gone in an instant.

“All I need to know,” I whispered. Fergus’s pallet was empty; waking and finding himself cold, he had crawled off in search of a warm haven.

He was curled up in Jamie’s bed, the dark head and the red one resting side by side on the pillow, mouths slightly open as they snored peacefully together. I couldn’t help smiling at the sight, but I didn’t mean to sleep on the floor myself.

“Out you go,” I murmured to Fergus, manhandling him to the edge of the bed, and rolling him into my arms. He was light-boned and thin for a ten-year-old, but still awfully heavy. I got him to his pallet without difficulty and plunked him in, still unconscious, then came back to Jamie’s bed.

I undressed slowly, standing by the bed, looking down at him. He had turned onto his side and curled himself up against the cold. His lashes lay long and curving against his cheek; they were a deep auburn, nearly black at the tips, but a pale blond near the roots. It gave him an oddly innocent air, despite the long, straight nose and the firm lines of mouth and chin.

Clad in my chemise, I slid into bed behind him, snuggling against the wide, warm back in its woolen nightshirt. He stirred a little, coughing, and I put a hand on the curve of his hip to soothe him. He shifted, curling further and thrusting himself back against me with a small exhalation of awareness. I put my arm around his waist, my hand brushing the soft mass of his testicles. I could rouse him, I knew, sleepy as he was; it took very little to bring him standing, no more than a few firm strokes of my fingers.

I didn’t want to disturb his rest, though, and contented myself with gently patting his belly. He reached back a large hand and clumsily patted my thigh in return.

“I love you,” he muttered, half-awake.

“I know,” I said, and fell asleep at once, holding him.

39 FAMILY TIES

It was not quite a slum, but the next thing to it. I stepped gingerly aside to avoid a substantial puddle of filth, left by the emptying of chamber pots from the windows overhead, awaiting removal by the next hard rain.

Randall caught my elbow to save my slipping on the slimy cobblestones. I stiffened at the touch, and he withdrew his hand at once.

He saw my glance at the crumbling doorpost, and said defensively, “I couldn’t afford to move him to better quarters. It isn’t so bad inside.”

It wasn’t – quite. Some effort had been made at furnishing the room comfortably, at least. There was a large bowl and ewer, a sturdy table with a loaf, a cheese, and a bottle of wine upon it, and the bed was equipped with a feather mattress, and several thick quilts.

The man who lay on the mattress had thrown off the quilts, overheated by the effort of coughing, I assumed. He was quite red in the face, and the force of his coughing shook the bed frame, sturdy as it was.

I crossed to the window and threw it up, disregarding Randall’s exclamation of protest. Cold air swept into the stifling room, and the stench of unwashed flesh, unclean linen, and overflowing chamber pot lightened a bit.

The coughing gradually eased, and Alexander Randall’s flushed countenance faded to a pasty white. His lips were slightly blue, and his chest labored as he fought to recover his breath.

I glanced around the room, but didn’t see anything suitable to my purpose. I opened my medical kit and drew out a stiff sheet of parchment. It was a trifle frayed at the edges, but would still serve. I sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling as reassuringly at Alexander as I could manage.

“It was… kind of you… to come,” he said, struggling not to cough between words.

“You’ll be better in a moment,” I said. “Don’t talk, and don’t fight the cough. I’ll need to hear it.”

His shirt was unfastened already; I spread it apart to expose a shockingly sunken chest. It was nearly fleshless; the ribs were clearly visible from abdomen to clavicle. He had always been thin, but the last year’s illness had left him emaciated.

I rolled the parchment into a tube and placed one end against his chest, my ear against the other. It was a crude stethoscope, but amazingly effective.

I listened at various spots, instructing him to breathe deeply. I didn’t need to tell him to cough, poor boy.

“Roll onto your stomach for a moment.” I pulled up the shirt and listened, then tapped gently on his back, testing the resonance over both lungs. The bare flesh was clammy with sweat under my fingers.

“All right. Onto your back again. Just lie still, now, and relax. This won’t hurt at all.” I kept up the soothing talk as I checked the whites of his eyes, the swollen lymph glands in his neck, the coated tongue and inflamed tonsils.

“You’ve a touch of catarrh,” I said, patting his shoulder. “I’ll brew you something that will ease the cough. Meanwhile…” I pointed a toe distastefully at the lidded china receptacle under the bed, and glanced at the man who stood waiting by the door, back braced and rigid as though on parade.

“Get rid of that,” I ordered. Randall glared at me, but came forward and stooped to obey.

“Not out the window!” I said sharply, as he made a move toward it. “Take it downstairs.” He about-faced and left without looking at me.

Alexander drew a shallow breath as the door closed behind his brother. He smiled up at me, hazel eyes glowing in his pale face. The skin was nearly transparent, stretched tight over the bones of his face.

“You’d better hurry, before Johnny comes back. What is it?”

His dark hair was disordered by the coughing; trying to restrain the feelings it roused in me, I smoothed it for him. I didn’t want to tell him, but he clearly knew already.

“You have got catarrh. You also have tuberculosis – consumption.”

“And?”

“And congestive heart failure,” I said, meeting his eyes straight on.

“Ah. I thought… something of the kind. It flutters in my chest sometimes… like a very small bird.” He laid a hand lightly over his heart.

I couldn’t bear the look of his chest, heaving under its impossible burden, and I gently closed his shirt and fastened the tie at the neck. One long, white hand grasped mine.

“How long?” he said. His tone was light, almost unconcerned, displaying no more than a mild curiosity.

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s the truth. I don’t know.”

“But not long,” he said, with certainty.

“No. Not long. Months perhaps, but almost surely less than a year.”

“Can you… stop the coughing?”

I reached for my kit. “Yes. I can help it, at least. And the heart palpitations; I can make you a digitalin extract that will help.” I found the small packet of dried foxglove leaves; it would take a little time to brew them.

“Your brother,” I said, not looking at him. “Do you want me-”

“No,” he said, definitely. One corner of his mouth curved up, and he looked so like Frank that I wanted momentarily to weep for him.

“No,” he said. “He’ll know already, I think. We’ve always… known things about each other.”

“Have you, then?” I asked, looking directly at him. He didn’t turn away from my eyes, but smiled faintly.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I know about him. It doesn’t matter.”

Oh, doesn’t it? I thought. Not to you, perhaps. Not trusting either my face or my voice, I turned away and busied myself in lighting the small alcohol lamp I carried.

“He is my brother,” the soft voice said behind me. I took a deep breath and steadied my hands to measure out the leaves.

“Yes,” I said, “at least he’s that.”

Since news had spread of Cope’s amazing defeat at Prestonpans, offers of support, of men and money, poured in from the north. In some cases, these offers even materialized: Lord Ogilvy, the eldest son of the Earl of Airlie, brought six hundred of his father’s tenants, while Stewart of Appin appeared at the head of four hundred men from the shires of Aberdeen and Banff. Lord Pitsligo was single-handedly responsible for most of the Highland cavalry, bringing in a large number of gentlemen and their servants from the northeastern counties, all well mounted and well armed – at least by comparison with some of the miscellaneous clansmen, who came armed with claymores saved by their grandsires from the Rising of the ’15, rusty axes, and pitchforks lately removed from the more homely tasks of cleaning cow-byres.

They were a motley crew, but none the less dangerous for that, I reflected, making my way through a knot of men gathered round an itinerant knifegrinder, who was sharpening dirks, razors, and scythes with perfect indifference. An English soldier facing them might be risking tetanus rather than instant death, but the results were likely to be the same.

While Lord Lewis Gordon, the Duke of Gordon’s younger brother, had come to do homage to Charles in Holyrood, holding out the glittering prospect of raising the whole of clan Gordon, it was a long way from hand-kissing to the actual provisioning of men.

And the Scottish Lowlands, while perfectly willing to cheer loudly at news of Charles’s victory, were singularly unwilling to send men to support him; nearly the whole of the Stuart army was composed of Highlanders, and likely to remain so. The Lowlands hadn’t been a total washout, though; Lord George Murray had told me that levies of food, goods, and money on the southern burghs had resulted in a very useful sum being contributed to the army’s treasury, which might tide them over for a time.

“We’ve gotten fifty-five hundred pounds from Glasgow, alone. Though it’s but a pittance, compared to the promised moneys from France and Spain,” His Lordship had confided to Jamie. “But I’m not inclined to turn up my nose at it, particularly as His Highness has had nothing from France but soothing words, and no gold.”

Jamie, who knew just how unlikely the French gold was to materialize, had merely nodded.

“Have ye found out anything more today, mo duinne?” he asked me as I came in. He had a half-written dispatch in front of him, and stuck his quill into the inkpot to wet it again. I pulled the damp hood off my hair with a crackle of static electricity, nodding.

“There’s a rumor that General Hawley is forming cavalry units in the south. He has orders for the formation of eight regiments.”

Jamie grunted. Given the Highlanders’ aversion to cavalry, this wasn’t good news. Absentmindedly, he rubbed his back, where the hoofprint-shaped bruise from Prestonpans had all but faded.

“I’ll put it down for Colonel Cameron, then,” he said. “How good a rumor do ye think it is, Sassenach?” Almost automatically, he glanced over his shoulder, to be sure we were alone. He called me “Sassenach” now only in privacy, using the formality of “Claire” in public.

“You can take it to the bank,” I said. “I mean, it’s good.”

It wasn’t a rumor at all; it was the latest bit of intelligence from Jack Randall, the latest installment payment on the debt he insisted on assuming for my care of his brother.

Jamie knew, of course, that I visited Alex Randall, as well as the sick of the Jacobite army. What he didn’t know, and what I could never tell him, was that once a week – sometimes more often – I would meet Jack Randall, to hear what news seeped into Edinburgh Castle from the South.

Sometimes he came to Alex’s room when I was there; other times, I would be coming home in the winter twilight, watching my footing on the slippery cobbles of the Royal Mile, when suddenly a stick-straight form in brown homespun would beckon from the mouth of a close, or a quiet voice come out of the mist behind my shoulder. It was unnerving; like being haunted by Frank’s ghost.

It would have been simpler in many ways for him to leave a letter for me at Alex’s lodging, but he would have nothing put in writing, and I could see his point. If such a letter was ever found, even unsigned, it could implicate not only him but Alex as well. As it was, Edinburgh teemed with strangers; volunteers to King James’s standard, curious visitors from south and north, foreign envoys from France and Spain, spies and informers in plenty. The only people not abroad on the streets were the officers and men of the English garrison, who remained mewed up in the Castle. So long as no one heard him speak to me, no one would recognize him for what he was, nor think anything odd of our encounters, even were we seen – and we seldom were, such were his precautions.

For my part, I was just as pleased; I would have had to destroy anything put in writing. While I doubted that Jamie would recognize Randall’s hand, I couldn’t explain a regular source of information without outright lying. Far better to make it appear that the information he gave me was merely part of the gleanings of my daily rounds.

The drawback, of course, was that by treating Randall’s contributions in the same light as the other rumors I collected, they might be discounted or ignored. Still, while I believed that Jack Randall was supplying information in good faith – assuming one could entertain such a concept in conjunction with the man – it didn’t necessarily follow that it was always correct. As well to have it regarded skeptically.

I relayed the news of Hawley’s new regiments with the usual faint twinge of guilt at my quasi deception. However, I had concluded that while honesty between husband and wife was essential, there was such a thing as carrying it too bloody far. And I saw no reason why the supplying of useful information to the Jacobites should cause Jamie further pain.

“The Duke of Cumberland is still waiting for his troops to return from Flanders,” I added. “And the siege of Stirling Castle is getting nowhere.”

Jamie grunted, scribbling busily. “That much I knew; Lord George had a dispatch from Francis Townsend two days ago; he holds the town, but the ditches His Highness insisted on are wasting men and time. There’s no need for them; they’d do better just to batter the Castle from a distance with cannon fire, and then storm it.”

“So why are they digging ditches?”

Jamie waved a hand distractedly, still concentrating on his writing. His ears were pink with frustration.

“Because the Italian army dug ditches when they took Verano Castle, which is the only siege His Highness has seen, so plainly that’s how it must be done, aye?”

“Och, aye,” I said.

It worked; he looked up at me and laughed, his eyes slanting half-shut with it.

“That’s a verra fair try, Sassenach,” he said. “What else can ye say?”

“Settle for the Lord’s Prayer in Gaelic, would you?” I asked.

“No,” he said, scattering sand across his dispatch. He got up, kissed me briefly, and reached for his coat. “But I’ll settle for some supper. Come along, Sassenach. We’ll find a nice, cozy tavern and I’ll teach you a lot of things ye mustn’t say in public. They’re all fresh in my mind.”

Stirling Castle fell at last. The cost had been high, the likelihood of holding it low, and the benefit in keeping it dubious. Still, the effect on Charles was euphoric – and disastrous.

“I have succeeded at last in convincing Murray – such a stubborn fool as he is!” Charles interjected, frowning. Then he remembered his victory, and beamed around the room once more. “I have prevailed, I say, though. We march into England on this day a week, to reclaim all of my Father’s lands!”

The Scottish chieftains gathered in the morning drawing room glanced at each other, and there was considerable coughing and shifting of weight. The overall mood didn’t seem to be one of wild enthusiasm at the news.

“Er, Your Highness,” Lord Kilmarnock began, carefully. “Would it not be wiser to consider…?”

They tried. They all tried. Scotland, they pointed out, already belonged to Charles, lock, stock, and barrel. Men were still pouring in from the north, while from the south there seemed little promise of support. And the Scottish lords were all too aware that the Highlanders, while fierce fighters and loyal followers, were also farmers. Fields needed to be tilled for the spring planting; cattle needed to be provisioned for overwintering. Many of the men would resist going deeply into the South in the winter months.

“And these men – they are not my subjects? They go not where I command them? Nonsense,” Charles said firmly. And that was that. Almost.

“James, my friend! Wait, I speak with you a moment in private, if you please.” His Highness turned from a few sharp words with Lord Pitsligo, his long, stubborn chin softening a bit as he waved a hand at Jamie.

I didn’t think I was included in this invitation. I hadn’t any intention of leaving, though, and settled more firmly into one of the gold damask chairs as the Jacobite lords and chieftains filed out, muttering to each other.

“Ha!” Charles snapped his fingers contemptuously in the direction of the closing door. “Old women, all of them! They will see. So will my cousin Louis, so will Philip – do I need their help? I show them all.” I saw the pale, manicured fingers touch briefly at a spot just over his breast. A faint rectangular outline showed through the silk of his coat. He was carrying Louise’s miniature; I had seen it.

“I wish Your Highness every good fortune in the endeavor,” Jamie murmured, “but…”

“Ah, I thank you, cher James! You at least believe in me!” Charles threw an arm about Jamie’s shoulders, massaging his deltoids affectionately.

“I am desolated that you will not accompany me, that you will not be at my side to receive the applause of my subjects as we march into England,” Charles said, squeezing vigorously.

“I won’t?” Jamie looked stunned.

“Alas, mon cher ami, duty demands of you a great sacrifice. I know how much your great heart yearns for the glories of battle, but I require you for another task.”

“You do?” said Jamie.

“What?” I said bluntly.

Charles cast a glance of well-mannered dislike in my direction, then turned back to Jamie and resumed the bonhomie.

“It is a task of the greatest import, my James, and one that only you can do. It is true that men flock to my Father’s standard; more come every day. Still, we must not haste to feel secure, no? By such luck, your kinsmen the MacKenzies have come to my aid. But you have to your family another side, eh?”

“No,” Jamie said, a look of horror dawning on his face.

“But yes,” said Charles, with a final squeeze. He swung around to face Jamie, beaming. “You will go to the north, to the land of your fathers, and return to me at the head of the men of clan Fraser!”

40 THE FOX’S LAIR

“Do you know your grandfather well?” I asked, waving away an unseasonable deerfly that seemed unable to make up its mind whether I or the horse would make a better meal.

Jamie shook his head.

“No. I’ve heard he acts like a terrible auld monster, but ye shouldna be scairt of him.” He smiled at me as I swatted at the deerfly with the end of my shawl. “I’ll be with you.”

“Oh, crusty old gentlemen don’t bother me,” I assured him. “I’ve seen a good many of those in my time. Soft as butter underneath, the most of them. I imagine your grandfather’s much the same.”

“Mm, no,” he replied thoughtfully. “He really is a terrible auld monster. It’s only, if ye act scairt of him, it makes him worse. Like a beast scenting blood, ye ken?”

I cast a look ahead, where the far-off hills that hid Beaufort Castle suddenly loomed in a rather sinister manner. Taking advantage of my momentary lack of attention, the deerfly made a strafing run past my left ear. I squeaked and ducked to the side, and the horse, taken aback by this sudden movement, shied in a startled manner.

“Hey! Cuir stad!” Jamie dove sideways to grab my reins, dropping his own. Better schooled than my own mount, his horse snorted, but accommodated this maneuver, merely flicking its ears in a complacently superior way.

Jamie dug his knees into his horse’s sides, pulling mine to a stop alongside.

“Now then,” he said, narrowed eyes following the zigzag flight of the humming deerfly. “Let him light, Sassenach, and I’ll get him.” He waited, hands raised at the ready, squinting slightly in the sunlight.

I sat like a mildly nervous statue, half-hypnotized by the menacing buzz. The heavy winged body, deceptively slow, hummed lazily back and forth between the horse’s ears and my own. The horse’s ears twitched violently, an impulse with which I was in complete sympathy.

“If that thing lands in my ear, Jamie, I’m going to-” I began.

“Shh!” he ordered, leaning forward in anticipation, left hand cupped like a panther about to strike. “Another second, and I’ll have him.”

Just then I saw the dark blob alight on his shoulder. Another deerfly, seeking a basking place. I opened my mouth again.

“Jamie…”

“Hush!” He clapped his hands together triumphantly on my tormentor, a split second before the deerfly on his collar sank its fangs into his neck.

Scottish clansmen fought according to their ancient traditions. Disdaining strategy, tactics, and subtlety, their method of attack was simplicity itself. Spotting the enemy within range, they dropped their plaids, drew their swords, and charged the foe, shrieking at the tops of their lungs. Gaelic shrieking being what it is, this method was more often successful than not. A good many enemies, seeing a mass of hairy, bare-limbed banshees bearing down on them, simply lost all nerve and fled.

Well schooled as it might ordinarily be, nothing had prepared Jamie’s horse for a grade-A, number one Gaelic shriek, uttered at top volume from a spot two feet behind its head. Losing all nerve, it laid back its ears and fled as though the devil itself were after it.

My mount and I sat transfixed in the road, watching an outstanding exhibition of Scottish horsemanship as Jamie, both stirrups lost and the reins free, flung half out of his saddle by his horse’s abrupt departure, heaved himself desperately forward, grappling for the mane. His plaid fluttered madly about him, stirred by the wind of his passing, and the horse, thoroughly panicked by this time, took the thrashing mass of color as an excuse to run even faster.

One hand tangled in the long mane, Jamie was grimly hauling himself upright, long legs clasping the horse’s sides, ignoring the stirrup irons that danced beneath the beast’s belly. Scraps of what even my limited Gaelic recognized as extremely bad language floated back on the gentle wind.

A slow, clopping sound made me look behind, to where Murtagh, leading the pack horse, was coming over the small rise we had just descended. He made his careful way down the road to where I waited. He pulled his animal to a leisurely stop, shaded his eyes, and looked ahead, to the spot where Jamie and his panicked mount were just vanishing over the next hilltop.

“A deerfly,” I said, in explanation.

“Late for them. Still, I didna think he’d be in such a hurry to meet his grandsire as to leave ye behind,” Murtagh remarked, with his customary dryness. “Not that I’d say a wife more or less will make much difference in his reception.”

He picked up his reins and booted his pony into reluctant motion, the packhorse amiably coming along for the journey. My own mount, cheered by the company and reassured by a temporary absence of flies, stepped out quite gaily alongside.

“Not even an English wife?” I asked curiously. From the little I knew, I didn’t think Lord Lovat’s relations with anything English were much to cheer about.

“English, French, Dutch, or German. It isna like to make much difference; it’ll be the lad’s liver the Old Fox will be eatin’ for breakfast, not yours.”

“What do you mean by that?” I stared at the dour little clansman, looking much like one of his own bundles, under the loose wrapping of plaid and shirt. Somehow every garment that Murtagh put on, no matter how new or how well tailored, immediately assumed the appearance of something narrowly salvaged from a rubbish heap.

“What kind of terms is Jamie on with Lord Lovat?”

I caught a sidelong glance from a small, shrewd black eye, and then his head turned toward Beaufort Castle. He shrugged, in resignation or anticipation.

“No terms at all, ’til now. The lad’s never spoken to his grandsire in his life.”

“But how do you know so much about him if you’ve never met him?”

At least I was beginning to understand Jamie’s earlier reluctance to approach his grandfather for help. Reunited with Jamie and his horse, the latter looking rather chastened, and the former irritable to a degree, Murtagh had gazed speculatively at him, and offered to ride ahead to Beaufort with the pack animal, leaving Jamie and me to enjoy lunch at the side of the road.

Over a restorative ale and oatcake, he had at length told me that his grandfather, Lord Lovat, had not approved of his son’s choice of bride, and had not seen fit either to bless the union or to communicate with his son – or his son’s children – anytime since the marriage of Brian Fraser and Ellen MacKenzie, more than thirty years before.

“I’ve heard a good bit about him, one way and another, though.” Jamie replied, chewing a bite of cheese. “He’s the sort of man that makes an impression on folk, ye ken.”

“So I gather.” The elderly Tullibardine, one of the Parisian Jacobites, had regaled me with a number of uncensored opinions regarding the leader of clan Fraser, and I thought that perhaps Brian Fraser had not been desolated at his father’s inattention. I said as much, and Jamie nodded.

“Oh, aye. I canna recall my father having much good to say of the old man, though he wouldna be disrespectful of him. He just didna speak of him often.” He rubbed at the side of his neck, where a red welt from the deerfly bite was beginning to show. The weather was freakishly warm, and he had unfolded his plaid for me to sit on. The deputation to the head of clan Fraser had been thought worth some investment in dignity, and Jamie wore a new kilt, of the buckled military cut, with the plaid a separate strip of cloth. Less enveloping for shelter from the weather than the older, belted plaid, it was a good deal more efficient to put on in a hurry.

“I wondered a bit,” he said thoughtfully, “whether my father was the sort of father he was because of the way old Simon treated him. I didna realize it at the time, of course, but it’s no so common for a man to show his feelings for his sons.”

“You’ve thought about it a lot.” I offered him another flask of ale, and he took it with a smile that lingered on me, more warming than the feeble autumn sun.

“Aye, I did. I was wondering, ye see, what sort of father I’d be to my own bairns, and looking back a bit to see, my own father being the best example I had. Yet I knew, from the bits that he said, or that Murtagh told me, that his own father was nothing like him, so I thought as how he must have made up his mind to do it all differently, once he had the chance.”

I sighed a bit, setting down my bit of cheese.

“Jamie,” I said. “Do you really think we’ll ever-”

“I do,” he said, with certainty, not letting me finish. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I know it, Sassenach, and so do you. You were meant to be a mother, and I surely dinna intend to let anyone else father your children.”

“Well, that’s good,” I said. “Neither do I.”

He laughed and tilted my chin up to kiss my lips. I kissed him back, then reached up to brush away a breadcrumb that clung to the stubble around his mouth.

“Ought you to shave, do you think?” I asked. “In honor of seeing your grandfather for the first time?”

“Oh, I’ve seen him the once before,” he said casually. “And he’s seen me, for that matter. As for what he thinks of my looks now, he can take me as I am, and be damned to him.”

“But Murtagh said you’d never met him!”

“Mphm.” He brushed the rest of the crumbs from his shirtfront, frowning slightly as if deciding how much to tell me. Finally he shrugged and lay back in the shade of a gorse bush, hands clasped behind his head as he stared at the sky.

“Well, we never have met, as ye’d say. Or not exactly. ’Twas like this…”

At the age of seventeen, young Jamie Fraser set sail for France, to finish his education at the University of Paris, and to learn further such things as are not taught in books.

“I sailed from the harbor at Beauly,” he said, nodding over the next hill, where a narrow slice of gray on the far horizon marked the edge of the Moray Firth. “There were other ports I could have gone by – Inverness would have been most like – but my father booked my passage, and from Beauly it was. He rode with me, to see me off into the world, ye might say.”

Brian Fraser had seldom left Lallybroch in the years since his marriage, and took pleasure as they rode in pointing out various spots to his son, where he had hunted or traveled as boy and young man.

“But he grew much quieter as we drew near Beaufort. He hadna spoken of my grandsire on this trip, and I knew better than mention him myself. But I kent he had reason for sending me from Beauly.”

A number of small sparrows edged their way cautiously nearer, popping in and out of the low shrubs, ready to dart back to safety at the slightest hint of danger. Seeing them, Jamie reached for a remnant of bread, and tossed it with considerable accuracy into the middle of the flock, which exploded like shrapnel, all fleeing the sudden intrusion.

“They’ll be back,” he said, motioning toward the scattered birds. He put an arm across his face as though to shield it from the sun, and went on with his story.

“There was a sound of horses along the road from the castle, and when we turned to see, there was a small party coming down, six horsemen with a wagon, and one of them held Lovat’s banner, so I knew my grandfather was with them. I looked quick at my father, to see did he mean to do anything, but he just smiled and squeezed my shoulder quick and said, ‘Let’s go aboard, then, lad.’

“I could feel my grandsire’s eyes on me as I walked down the shore, wi’ my hair and my height fair shriekin’ ‘MacKenzie,’ and I was glad I had my best clothes on and didna look a beggar. I didna look round, but I stood as tall as I could, and was proud that I had half a head’s height above the tallest man there. My father walked by my side, quiet like he was, and he didna look aside, either, but I could feel him there, proud that he’d sired me.”

He smiled at me, lopsided.

“That was the last time I was sure I’d done well by him, Sassenach. I wasna so sure, times after, but I was glad of that one day.”

He locked his arms around his knees, staring ahead as though reliving the scene on the quay.

“We stepped aboard the ship, and met the master, then we stood by the rail, talking a bit about nothing, both of us careful not to look at the men from Beaufort who were loading the bundles, or glance to the shore where the horsemen stood. Then the master gave the order to cast off. I kissed my father, and he jumped over the rail, down to the dock, and walked to his horse. He didna look back until he was mounted, and by then the ship had started out into the harbor.

“I waved, and he waved back, then he turned, leading my horse, and started on the road back to Lallybroch. And the party from Beaufort turned then, too, and started back. I could see my grandsire at the head of the party, sitting straight in his saddle. And they rode, my father and grandfather, twenty yards apart, up the hill and over it, out of my sight, and neither one turned to the other, or acted as though the other one was there at all.”

He turned his head down the road, as though looking for signs of life from the direction of Beaufort.

“I met his eyes,” he said softly. “The once. I waited until Father reached his horse, and then I turned and looked at Lord Lovat, bold as I could. I wanted him to know we’d ask nothing of him, but that I wasna scairt of him.” He smiled at me, one-sided. “I was, though.”

I put a hand over his, stroking the grooves of his knuckles.

“Was he looking back at you?”

He snorted briefly.

“Aye, he was. Reckon he didna take his eyes off me from the time I came down the hill ’til my ship sailed away; I could feel them borin’ into my back like an auger. And when I looked at him, there he was, wi’ his eyes black under his brows, starin’ into mine.”

He fell silent, still looking at the castle, ’til I gently prodded him.

“How did he look, then?”

He pulled his eyes from the dark cloud mass on the far horizon to look down at me, the customary expression of good humor missing from the curve of his mouth, the depths of his eyes.

“Cold as stone, Sassenach,” he replied. “Cold as the stone.”

We were lucky in the weather; it had been warm all the way from Edinburgh.

“It’s no going to last,” Jamie predicted, squinting toward the sea ahead. “See the bank of cloud out there? It will be inland by tonight.” He sniffed the air, and pulled his plaid across his shoulders. “Smell the air? Ye can feel weather coming.”

Not so experienced at olfactory meteorology, I still thought that perhaps I could smell it; a dampness in the air, sharpening the usual smells of dried heather and pine resin, with a faint, moist scent of kelp from the distant shore mixed in.

“I wonder if the men have got back to Lallybroch yet,” I said.

“I doubt it.” Jamie shook his head. “They’ve less distance to go than we’ve had, but they’re all afoot, and it will ha’ been slow getting them all away.” He rose in his stirrups, shading his eyes to peer toward the distant cloud bank. “I hope it’s just rain; that willna trouble them overmuch. And it might not be a big storm, in any case. Perhaps it willna reach so far south.”

I pulled my arisaid, a warm tartan shawl, tighter around my own shoulders, in response to the rising breeze. I had thought this few days’ stretch of warm weather a good omen; I hoped it hadn’t been deceptive.

Jamie had spent an entire night sitting by the window in Holyrood, after receipt of Charles’s order. And in the morning, he had gone first to Charles, to tell His Highness that he and I would ride alone to Beauly, accompanied only by Murtagh, to convey His Highness’s respects to Lord Lovat, and his request that Lovat honor his promise of men and aid.

Next, Jamie had summoned Ross the smith to our chamber, and given him his orders, in a voice so low that I could not make out the words from my place near the fire. I had seen the burly smith’s shoulders rise, though, and set firm, as he absorbed their import.

The Highland army traveled with little discipline, in a ragtag mob that could scarcely be dignified as a “column.” In the course of one day’s movement, the men of Lallybroch were to drop away, one by one. Stepping aside into the shrubbery as though to rest a moment or relieve themselves, they were not to return to the main body, but to steal quietly away, and make their way, one by one, to a rendezvous with the other men from Lallybroch. And once regathered under the command of Ross the smith, they were to go home.

“I doubt they’ll be missed for some time, if at all,” Jamie had said, discussing the plan with me beforehand. “Desertion is rife, all through the army. Ewan Cameron told me they’d lost twenty men from his regiment within the last week. It’s winter, and men want to be settling their homes and making things ready for the spring planting. In any case, it’s sure there’s no one to spare to go after them, even should their leavin’ be noticed.”

“Have you given up, then, Jamie?” I had asked, laying a hand on his arm. He had rubbed a hand tiredly over his face before answering.

“I dinna ken, Sassenach. It may be too late; it may not. I canna tell. It was foolish to go south so near to the winter; and more foolish still to waste time in beseiging Stirling. But Charles hasna been defeated, and the chiefs – some of them – are coming in answer to his summons. The MacKenzies, now, and others because of them. He’s twice as many men now as we had at Preston. What will that mean?” He flung up his hands, frustrated.

“I dinna ken. There’s no opposition; the English are terrified. Well, ye know; you’ve seen the broadsheets.” He smiled without humor. “We spit small children and roast them ower the fire, and dishonor the wives and daughters of honest men.” He gave a snort of wry disgust. While such crimes as theft and insubordination were common among the Highland army, rape was virtually unknown.

He sighed, a brief, angry sound. “Cameron’s heard a rumor that King Geordie’s makin’ ready to flee from London, in fear that the Prince’s army will take the city soon.” He had – a rumor that had reached Cameron through me, from Jack Randall. “And there’s Kilmarnock, and Cameron. Lochiel, and Balmerino, and Dougal, with his MacKenzies. Bonny fighters all. And should Lovat send the men he’s promised – God, maybe it would be enough. Christ, should we march into London-” He hunched his shoulders, then stretched suddenly, shrugging as though to fight his way out of a strangling shirt.

“But I canna risk it,” he said simply. “I canna go to Beauly, and leave my own men here, to be taken God knows where. If I were there to head them – that would be something else. But damned if I’ll leave them for Charles or Dougal to throw at the English, and me a hundred miles away at Beauly.”

So it was arranged. The Lallybroch men – including Fergus, who had protested vociferously, but been overruled – would desert, and depart inconspicuously for home. Once our business at Beauly was completed, and we had returned to join Charles – well, then it would be time enough to see how matters went.

“That’s why I’m takin’ Murtagh with us,” Jamie had explained. “If it looks all right, then I shall send him to Lallybroch to fetch them back.” A brief smile lightened his somber face. “He doesna look much on a horse, but he’s a braw rider, is Murtagh. Fast as chain lightning.”

He didn’t look it at the moment, I reflected, but then, there was no emergency at hand. In fact, he was moving even slower than usual; as we topped one hill, I could see him at the bottom, pulling his horse to a halt. By the time we had reached him, he was off, glaring at the packhorse’s saddle.

“What’s amiss, then?” Jamie made to get down from his own saddle, but Murtagh waved him irritably off.

“Nay, nay, naught to trouble ye. A binding’s snapped, is all. Get ye on.”

With no more than a nod of acknowledgment, Jamie reined away, and I followed him.

“Not very canty today, is he?” I remarked, with a flip of the hand back in Murtagh’s direction. In fact, the small clansman had grown more testy and irritable with each step in the direction of Beauly. “I take it he’s not enchanted with the prospect of visting Lord Lovat?”

Jamie smiled, with a brief backward glance at the small, dark figure, bent in absorption over the rope he was splicing.

“Nay, Murtagh’s no friend of Old Simon. He loved my father dearly” – his mouth quirked to one side – “and my mother, as well. He didna care for Lovat’s treatment of them. Or for Lovat’s methods of getting wives. Murtagh’s got an Irish grandmother, but he’s related to Primrose Campbell through his mother’s side,” he explained, as though this made everything crystal clear.

“Who’s Primrose Campbell?” I asked, bewildered.

“Oh.” Jamie scratched his nose, considering. The wind off the sea was rising steadily, and his hair was being whipped from its lacing, ruddy wisps flickering past his face.

“Primrose Cambell was Lovat’s third wife – still is, I suppose,” he added, “though she’s left him some years since and gone back to her father’s house.”

“Popular with women, is he?” I murmured.

Jamie snorted. “I suppose ye can call it that. He took his first wife by a forced marriage. Snatched the Dowager Lady Lovat from her bed in the middle o’ the night, married her then and there, and went straight back to bed with her. Still,” he added fairly, “she did later decide she loved him, so maybe he wasna so bad.”

“Must have been rather special in bed, at least,” I said flippantly. “Runs in the family, I expect.”

He cast me a mildly shocked look, which dissolved into a sheepish grin.

“Aye, well,” he said. “If he was or no, it didna help him much. The Dowager’s maids spoke up against him, and Simon was outlawed and had to flee to France.”

Forced marriages and outlawry, hm? I refrained from further remark on family resemblances, but privately trusted that Jamie wouldn’t follow in his grandfather’s footsteps with regard to subsequent wives. One had apparently been insufficient for Simon.

“He went to visit King James in Rome and swear his fealty to the Stuarts,” Jamie went on, “and then turned round and went straight to William of Orange, King of England, who was visiting in France. He got James to promise him his title and estates, should a restoration come about, and then – God knows how – got a full pardon from William, and was able to come home to Scotland.”

Now it was my turn for raised eyebrows. Apparently it wasn’t just attractiveness to the opposite sex, then.

Simon had continued his adventures by returning later to France, this time to spy on the Jacobites. Being found out, he was thrown into prison, but escaped, returned to Scotland, masterminded the assembling of the clans under the guise of a hunting-party on the Braes of Mar in 1715 – and then managed to get full credit with the English Crown for putting down the resultant Rising.

“Proper old twister, isn’t he?” I said, completely intrigued. “Though I suppose he can’t have been so old then; only in his forties.” Having heard that Lord Lovat was now in his middle seventies, I had been expecting something fairly doddering and decrepit, but was rapidly revising my expectations, in view of these stories.

“My grandsire,” Jamie observed evenly, “has by all reports got a character that would enable him to hide conveniently behind a spiral staircase. Anyway,” he went on, dismissing his grandfather’s character with a wave of his hand, “then he married Margaret Grant, the Grant o’ Grant’s daughter. It was after she died that he married Primrose Campbell. She was maybe eighteen at the time.”

“Was Old Simon enough of a catch for her family to force her into it?” I asked sympathetically.

“By no means, Sassenach.” He paused to brush the hair out of his face, tucking the stray locks back behind his ears. “He kent well enough that she wouldna have him, no matter if he was rich as Croesus – which he wasn’t – so he had her sent a letter, saying her mother was fallen sick in Edinburgh, and giving the house there she was to go to.”

Hastening to Edinburgh, the young and beautiful Miss Campbell had found not her mother, but the old and ingenious Simon Fraser, who had informed her that she was in a notorious house of pleasure, and that her only hope of preserving her good name was to marry him immediately.

“She must have been a right gump, to fall for that one,” I remarked cynically.

“Well, she was verra young,” Jamie said defensively, “and it wasna an idle threat, either; had she refused him, Old Simon would ha’ ruined her reputation without a second thought. In any event, she married him – and regretted it.”

“Hmph.” I was busy doing sums in my head. The encounter with Primrose Campbell had been only a few years ago, he’d said. Then… “Was it the Dowager Lady Lovat or Margaret Grant who was your grandmother?” I asked curiously.

The high cheekbones were chapped by sun and wind; now they flushed a sudden, painful red.

“Neither one,” he said. He didn’t look at me, but kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, in the direction of Beaufort Castle. His lips were pressed tightly together.

“My father was a bastard,” he said at last. He sat straight as a sword in the saddle, and his knuckles were white, fist clenched on the reins. “Acknowledged, but a bastard. By one of the Castle Downie maids.”

“Oh,” I said. There didn’t seem a lot to add.

He swallowed hard; I could see the ripple in his throat.

“I should ha’ told ye before,” he said stiffly. “I’m sorry.”

I reached out to touch his arm; it was hard as iron.

“It doesn’t matter, Jamie,” I said, knowing even as I spoke that nothing I said could make a difference. “I don’t mind in the slightest.”

“Aye?” he said at last, still staring straight ahead. “Well… I do.”

The steadily freshening wind off Moray Firth rustled its way through a hillside of dark pines. The country here was an odd combination of mountain slope and seashore. Thick growth of alders, larch, and birch blanketed the ground on both sides of the narrow track we followed, but as we approached the dark bulk of Beaufort Castle, over everything floated the effluvium of mud flats and kelp.

We were in fact expected; the kilted, ax-armed sentries at the gate made no challenge as we rode through. They looked at us curiously enough, but seemingly without enmity. Jamie sat straight as a king in his saddle. He nodded once to the man on his side, and received a similar nod in return. I had the distinct feeling that we entered the castle flying a white flag of truce; how long that state would last was anyone’s guess.

We rode unchallenged into the courtyard of Beaufort Castle, a small edifice as castles went, but sufficiently imposing, for all that, built of the native stone. Not so heavily fortified as some of the castles I had seen to the south, it looked still capable of withstanding a certain amount of abrasion. Wide-mouthed gun-holes gaped at intervals along the base of the outer walls, and the keep still boasted a stable opening onto the courtyard.

Several of the small Highland ponies were housed in this, heads poking over the wooden half-door to whicker in welcome to our own mounts. Near the wall lay a number of packs, recently unloaded from the ponies in the stable.

“Lovat’s summoned a few men to meet us,” Jamie observed grimly, noting the packs. “Relatives, I expect.” He shrugged. “At least they’ll be friendly enough to start with.”

“How do you know?”

He slid to the ground and reached up to help me down.

“They’ve left the broadswords wi’ the luggage.”

Jamie handed over the reins to an ostler who came out of the stables to meet us, dusting his hands on his breeks.

“Er, now what?” I murmured to Jamie under my breath. There was no sign of chatelaine or majordomo; nothing like the cheery, authoritative figure of Mrs. FitzGibbons that had welcomed us to Castle Leoch two years before.

The few ostlers and stable-lads about glanced at us now and then, but continued about their tasks, as did the servants who crossed the courtyard, lugging baskets of laundry, bundles of peat, and all the other cumbrous paraphernalia that living in a stone castle demanded. I looked approvingly after a burly manservant sweating under the burden of two five-gallon copper cans of water. Whatever its shortcomings in the hospitality department, Beaufort Castle at least boasted a bathtub somewhere.

Jamie stood in the center of the courtyard, arms crossed, surveying the place like a prospective buyer of real estate who harbors black doubts about the drains.

“Now we wait, Sassenach,” he said. “The sentries will ha’ sent word that we’re here. Either someone will come down to us… or they won’t.”

“Um,” I said. “Well, I hope they make up their minds about it soon; I’m hungry, and I could do with a wash.”

“Aye, ye could,” Jamie agreed, with a brief smile as he looked me over. “You’ve a smut on your nose, and there’s teasel-heads caught in your hair. No, leave them,” he added, as my hand went to my head in dismay. “It looks bonny, did ye do it on purpose or no.”

Definitely no, but I left them. Still, I sidled over to a nearby watering trough, to inspect my appearance and remedy it so far as was possible using nothing but cold water.

It was something of a delicate situation, so far as old Simon Fraser was concerned, I thought, bending over the trough and trying to make out which blotches on my reflected complexion were actual smudges and which caused by floating bits of hay.

On the one hand, Jamie was a formal emissary from the Stuarts. Whether Lovat’s promises of support for the cause were honest, or mere lip service, chances were that he would feel obliged to welcome the Prince’s representative, if only for the sake of courtesy.

On the other hand, said representative was an illegitimately descended grandson who, if not precisely disowned in his own person, certainly wasn’t a bosom member of the family, either. And I knew enough by now of Highland feuds to know that ill feeling of this sort was unlikely to be diminished by the passage of time.

I ran a wet hand across my closed eyes and back across my temples, smoothing down stray wisps of hair. On the whole, I didn’t think Lord Lovat would leave us standing in the courtyard. He might, however, leave us there long enough to realize fully the dubious nature of our reception.

After that – well, who knew? We would most likely be received by Lady Frances, one of Jamie’s aunts, a widow who – from all we had heard from Tullibardine – managed domestic affairs for her father. Or, if he chose to receive us as a diplomatic ambassage rather than as family connections, I supposed that Lord Lovat himself might appear to receive us, supported by the formal panoply of secretary, guards, and servants.

This last possibility seemed most likely, in view of the time it was taking; after all, you wouldn’t keep a full-dress entourage standing about – it would take some time to assemble the necessary personnel. Envisioning the sudden appearance of a fully equipped earl, I had second thoughts about leaving teasel-heads tangled in my hair, and leaned over the trough again.

At this point, I was interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the passageway behind the mangers. A squat-bodied elderly man in open shirt and unbuckled breeks stepped out into the courtyard, shoving aside a plump chestnut mare with a sharp elbow and an irritable “Tcha!” Despite his age, he had a back like a ramrod, and shoulders nearly as broad as Jamie’s.

Pausing by the horse trough, he glanced around the courtyard as though looking for someone. His eye passed over me without registering, then suddenly snapped back, clearly startled. He stepped forward and thrust his face pugnaciously forward, an unshaven gray beard bristling like a porcupine’s quills.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

“Claire Fraser, er, I mean, Lady Broch Tuarach,” I said, belatedly remembering my dignity. I gathered my self-possession, and wiped a drop of water off my chin. “Who the hell are you?” I demanded.

A firm hand gripped my elbow from behind, and a resigned voice from somewhere above my head said, “That, Sassenach, is my grandsire. My lord, may I present my wife?”

“Ah?” said Lord Lovat, giving me the benefit of a cold blue eye. “I’d heard you’d married an Englishwoman.” His tone made it clear that this act confirmed all his worst suspicions about the grandson he’d never met.

He raised a thick gray brow in my direction, and shifted the gimlet stare to Jamie. “No more sense than your father, it seems.”

I could see Jamie’s hands twitch slightly, resisting the urge to clench into fists.

“At the least, I had nay need to take a wife by rape or trickery,” he observed evenly.

His grandfather grunted, unfazed by the insult. I thought I saw the corner of his wrinkled mouth twitch, but wasn’t sure.

“Aye, and ye’ve gained little enough by the bargain ye struck,” he observed. “Though at that, this one’s less expensive than that MacKenzie harlot Brian fell prey to. If this sassenach wench brings ye naught, at least she looks as though she costs ye little.” The slanted blue eyes, so much like Jamie’s own, ran over my travel-stained gown, taking in the unstitched hem, the burst seam, and the splashes of mud on the skirt.

I could feel a fine vibration run through Jamie, and wasn’t sure whether it was anger or laughter.

“Thanks,” I said, with a friendly smile at his lordship. “I don’t eat much, either. But I could use a bit of a wash. Just water; don’t bother about the soap, if it comes too dear.”

This time I was sure about the twitch.

“Aye, I see,” his lordship said. “I shall send a maid to see ye to your rooms, then. And provide ye with soap. We shall see ye in the library before supper… grandson,” he added to Jamie, and turning on his heel, disappeared back under the archway.

“Who’s we?” I asked.

“Young Simon, I suppose,” Jamie answered. “His lordship’s heir. A stray cousin or two, maybe. And some of the tacksmen, I should imagine, judging from the horses in the courtyard. If Lovat’s going to consider sending troops to join the Stuarts, his tacksmen and tenants may have a bit to say about it.”

“Ever seen a small worm in a barnyard, in the middle of a flock of chickens?” he murmured as we walked down the hall an hour later behind a servant. “That’s me – or us, I should say. Stick close to me, now.”

The various connections of clan Fraser were indeed assembled; when we were shown into the Beaufort Castle library, it was to find more than twenty men seated around the room.

Jamie was formally introduced, and gave a formal statement on behalf of the Stuarts, giving the respects of Prince Charles and King James to Lord Lovat and appealing for Lovat’s help, to which the old man replied briefly, eloquently and noncommittally. Etiquette attended to, I was then brought forward and introduced, and the general atmosphere became more relaxed.

I was surrounded by a number of Highland gentlemen, who took turns exchanging words of welcome with me as Jamie chatted with someone named Graham, who seemed to be Lord Lovat’s cousin. The tacksmen eyed me with a certain amount of reserve, but were all courteous enough – with one exception.

Young Simon, much like his father in squatty outline, but nearly fifty years younger, came forward and bowed over my hand. Straightening up, he looked me over with an attention that seemed just barely this side of rudeness.

“Jamie’s wife, hm?” he asked. He had the slanted eyes of his father and half-nephew, but his were brown, muddy as bogwater. “I suppose that means I may call ye ‘niece,’ does it not?” He was just about Jamie’s age, clearly a few years younger than I.

“Ha-ha,” I said politely, as he chortled at his own wit. I tried to retrieve my hand, but he wasn’t letting go. Instead, he smiled jovially, giving me the once-over again.

“I’d heard of ye, you know,” he said. “You’ve a bit of fame through the Highlands, Mistress.”

“Oh, really? How nice.” I tugged inconspicuously; in response, his hand tightened around mine in a grip that was nearly painful.

“Oh, aye. I’ve heard you’re verra popular with the men of your husband’s command,” he said, smiling so hard his eyes narrowed to dark-brown slits. “They call ye neo-geimnidh meala, I hear. That means ‘Mistress Honeylips,’ ” he translated, seeing my look of bewilderment at the unfamiliar Gaelic.

“Why, thank you…” I began, but got no more than the first words out before Jamie’s fist crashed into Simon Junior’s jaw and sent his half-uncle reeling into a piecrust table, scattering sweetmeats and serving spoons across the polished slates with a terrific clatter.

He dressed like a gentleman, but he had a brawler’s instincts. Young Simon rolled up onto his knees, fists clenched, and froze there. Jamie stood over him, fists doubled but loose, his stillness more menacing than open threat.

“No,” he said evenly, “she doesna have much Gaelic. And now that ye’ve proved it to everyone’s satisfaction, ye’ll kindly apologize to my wife, before I kick your teeth down your throat.” Young Simon glowered up at Jamie, then glanced aside at his father, who nodded imperceptibly, looking impatient at this interruption. The younger Fraser’s shaggy black hair had come loose from its lacing, and hung like tree moss about his face. He eyed Jamie warily, but with a strange tinge of what looked like amusement as well, mingled with respect. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and bowed gravely to me, still on his knees.

“Your pardon, Mistress Fraser, and my apologies for any offense ye may have suffered.”

I could do no more than nod graciously in return, before Jamie was steering me out into the corridor. We had almost reached the door at the end before I spoke, glancing back to see that we were not overheard.

“What on earth does neo-geimnidh meala mean?” I said, jerking on his sleeve to slow him. He glanced down, as though I had just been recalled to his wandering attention.

“Ah? Oh, it means honeylips, all right. More or less.”

“But-”

“It’s no your mouth he was referring to, Sassenach,” Jamie said dryly.

“Why, that-” I made as if to turn back to the study, but Jamie tightened his grip on my arm.

“Cluck, cluck, cluck,” he murmured in my ear. “Dinna worry, Sassenach. They’re only tryin’ me. It will be all right.”

I was left in the care of Lady Frances, Young Simon’s sister, while Jamie returned to the library, shoulders squared for battle. I hoped he wouldn’t hit any more of his relatives; while the Frasers were, on the whole, not as sizable as the MacKenzies, they had a sort of tough watchfulness that boded ill for anyone trying something on in their immediate vicinity.

Lady Frances was young, perhaps twenty-two, and inclined to view me with a sort of terrorized fascination, as though I might spring upon her if not incessantly placated with tea and sweetmeats. I exerted myself to be as pleasant and unthreatening as possible, and after a time, she relaxed sufficiently to confess that she had never met an Englishwoman before. “Englishwoman,” I gathered, was an exotic and dangerous species.

I was careful to make no sudden moves, and after a bit, she grew comfortable enough to introduce me shyly to her son, a sturdy little chap of three or so, maintained in a state of unnatural cleanliness by the constant watchfulness of a stern-faced maidservant.

I was telling Frances and her younger sister Aline about Jenny and her family, whom they had never met, when there was a sudden crash and a cry in the hallway outside. I sprang to my feet, and reached the sitting-room door in time to see a huddled bundle of cloth struggling to rise to its feet in the stone corridor. The heavy door to the library stood open, and the squat figure of Simon Fraser the elder stood framed in it, malevolent as a toad.

“Ye’ll get worse than that, my lass, and ye make no better job of it,” he said. His tone was not particularly menacing; only a statement of fact. The bundled figure raised its head, and I saw an odd, angularly pretty face, dark eyes wide over the red blotch deepening on her cheekbone. She saw me, but made no acknowledgment of my presence, only getting to her feet and hurrying away without a word. She was very tall and extremely thin, and moved with the strange, half-clumsy grace of a crane, her shadow following her down the stones.

I stood staring at Old Simon, silhouetted against the firelight from the library behind him. He felt my eyes upon him, and turned his head to look at me. The old blue eyes rested on me, cold as sapphires.

“Good evening, my dear,” he said, and closed the door.

I stood looking blankly at the dark wooden door.

“What was that all about?” I asked Frances, who had come up behind me.

“Nothing,” she said, licking her lips nervously. “Come away, Cousin.” I let her pull me away, but resolved to ask Jamie later what had happened in the library.

We had reached the chamber allotted us for the night, and Jamie graciously dismissed our small guide with a pat on the head.

I sank down on the bed, gazing around helplessly.

“Now what do we do?” I asked. Dinner had passed with little to remark, but I had felt the weight of Lovat’s eyes on me from time to time.

Jamie shrugged, pulling his shirt over his head.

“Damned if I know, Sassenach,” he said. “They asked me the state of the Highland army, the condition of the troops, what I knew of His Highness’s plans. I told them. And then they asked it all again. My grandfather’s no inclined to think anyone could be giving him a straight answer,” he added dryly. “He thinks everyone must be as twisted as himself, wi’ a dozen different motives; one for every occasion.”

He shook his head and tossed the shirt onto the bed next to me.

“He canna tell whether I might be lying about the state of the Highland army or no. For if I wanted him to join the Stuarts, then I might say as how things were better than they are, where if I didna care personally, one way or the other, then I might tell the truth. And he doesna mean to commit himself one way or the other until he thinks he knows where I stand.”

“And just how does he mean to tell whether you are telling the truth?” I asked skeptically.

“He has a seer,” he replied casually, as though this were one of the normal furnishings of a Highland castle. For all I knew, it was.

“Really?” I sat up on the bed, intrigued. “Is that the odd-looking woman he threw out into the hall?”

“Aye. Her name’s Maisri, and she’s had the Sight since she was born. But she couldna tell him anything – or wouldn’t,” he added. “It was clear enough she knows something, but she’d do naught but shake her head and say she couldn’t see. That’s when my grandsire lost patience and struck her.”

“Bloody old crumb!” I said, indignant.

“Well, he’s no the flower o’ gallantry,” Jamie agreed.

He poured out a basin of water and began to splash handfuls over his face. He looked up, startled and streaming, at my gasp.

“Hah?”

“Your stomach…” I said, pointing. The skin between breastbone and kilt was mottled with a large fresh bruise, spreading like a large, unsightly blossom on his fair skin.

Jamie glanced down, said “Oh, that,” dismissively, and returned to his washing.

“Yes, that,” I said, coming to take a closer look. “What happened?”

“It’s no matter,” he said, speech coming thickly through a towel. “I spoke a bit hasty this afternoon, and my grandsire had Young Simon give me a small lesson in respect.”

“So he had a couple of minor Frasers hold you while he punched you in the belly?” I said, feeling slightly ill.

Tossing the towel aside, Jamie reached for his nightshirt.

“Verra flattering of you to suppose it took two to hold me,” he said, grinning as his head popped through the opening. “Actually, there were three; one was behind, chokin’ me.”

“Jamie!”

He laughed, shaking his head ruefully as he pulled back the quilt on the bed.

“I don’t know what it is about ye, Sassenach, that always makes me want to show off for ye. Get myself killed one of these days, tryin’ to impress ye, I expect.” He sighed, gingerly smoothing the woolen shirt over his stomach. “It’s only play-acting, Sassenach; ye shouldna worry.”

“Play-acting! Good God, Jamie!”

“Have ye no seen a strange dog join a pack, Sassenach? The others sniff at him, and nip at his legs, and growl, to see will he cower or growl back at them. And sometimes it comes to biting, and sometimes not, but at the end of it, every dog in the pack knows his place, and who’s leader. Old Simon wants to be sure I ken who leads this pack; that’s all.”

“Oh? And do you?” I lay down, waiting for him to come to bed. He picked up the candle and grinned down at me, the flickering light picking up a blue gleam in his eyes.

“Woof,” he said, and blew out the candle.

I saw very little of Jamie for the next two weeks, save at night. During the day, he was always with his grandfather, hunting or riding – for Lovat was a vigorous man, despite his age – or drinking in the study, as the Old Fox slowly drew his conclusions and laid his plans.

I spent most of my time with Frances and the other women. Out of the shadow of her redoubtable old father, Frances gained enough courage to speak her own mind, and proved an intelligent and interesting companion. She had the responsibility for the smooth running of the castle and its staff, but when her father appeared on the scene, she dwindled into insignificance, seldom raising her eyes or speaking above a whisper. I wasn’t sure I blamed her.

Two weeks after our arrival, Jamie came to fetch me from the drawing room where I sat with Frances and Aline, saying that Lord Lovat wished to see me.

Old Simon waved a casual hand at the decanters set on the table by the wall, then sat down in a wide-seated chair of carved walnut, with crushed padding in well-worn blue velvet. The chair fitted his short, stocky form as though it had been built around him; I wondered whether it had in fact been built to order, or whether, from long use, he had grown into the shape of the chair.

I sat down quietly in a corner with my glass of port, and kept quiet while Simon questioned Jamie once again about Charles Stuart’s situation and prospects.

For the twentieth time in a week, Jamie patiently rehearsed the number of troops available, the structure of command – insofar as one existed – the armament on hand and its condition – mostly poor – the prospects of Charles being joined by Lord Lewis Gordon or the Farquharsons, what Glengarry had said following Prestonpans, what Cameron knew or deduced of the movement of English troops, why Charles had decided to march south, and so on and so forth. I found myself nodding over the cup in my hand, and jerked myself into wakefulness, just in time to keep the ruby liquid from tipping onto my skirt.

“…and Lord George Murray and Kilmarnock both think His Highness would be best advised to pull back into the Highlands for the winter,” Jamie concluded, yawning widely. Cramped on the narrow-backed chair he had been given, he rose and stretched, his shadow flickering on the pale hangings that covered the stone walls.

“And what d’ye think, yourself?” Old Simon’s eyes glittered under half-fallen lids as he leaned back in his chair. The fire burned high and bright on the hearth; Frances had smoored the fire in the main hall, covering it with peats, but this one had been rekindled at Lovat’s order, and with wood, not peat. The smell of pine resin from the burning wood was sharp, mingled with the thicker smell of smoke.

The light cast Jamie’s shadow high on the wall as he turned restlessly, not wanting to sit down again. It was close and dark in the small study, with the window draped against the night – very different from the open, sunny kirkyard in which Column had asked him the same question. And the situation now had shifted; no longer the popular darling to whom clan chieftains deferred, Charles now was sending to the chiefs, grimly calling in his obligations. But the shape of the problem was the same – a dark, amorphous shape, hanging like a shadow over us.

“I’ve told ye what I think – a dozen times or more.” Jamie spoke abruptly. He moved his shoulders impatiently, shrugging as though the fit of his coat was too tight.

“Oh, aye. You’ve told me. But this time I think we shall have the truth.” The old man settled more comfortably into his padded chair, hands linked across his belly.

“Will ye, then?” Jamie uttered a short laugh, and turned to face his grandfather. He leaned back against the table, hands braced behind him. Despite the differences in posture and figure, there was a tension between the two men that brought out a fugitive resemblance between them. The one tall and the other squat, but both of them strong, stubborn, and determined to win this encounter.

“Am I not your kinsman? And your chief? I command your loyalty, do I not?”

So that was the point. Colum, so accustomed to physical weakness, had known the secret of turning another man’s weakness to his own purposes. Simon Fraser, strong and vigorous even in old age, was accustomed to getting his own way by more direct means. I could see from the sour smile on Jamie’s face that he, too, was contrasting Colum’s appeal with his grandfather’s demand.

“Can ye? I dinna recall that I’ve sworn ye an oath.”

Several long stiff hairs grew out of Simon’s eyebrows, in the way of old men. These quivered in the firelight, though I couldn’t tell whether with indignation or amusement.

“Oath, is it? And is it not Fraser blood in your veins?”

Jamie’s mouth twisted wryly as he answered. “They do say that it’s a wise child as kens his own father, no? My mother was a MacKenzie; I know that much.”

Simon’s face grew dark with blood, and his brows drew together. Then his mouth fell open, and he shouted with laughter. He laughed until he was forced to pull himself up in the chair and bend forward, sputtering and choking. At last, beating one hand on the arm of the chair in helpless mirth, he reached into his mouth with the other and pulled out his false teeth.

“Dod,” he sputtered, gasping and wheezing. Face streaming with tears and saliva, he groped blindly for the small table by his chair, and dropped the teeth onto the cake plate. The gnarled fingers closed on a linen napkin, and he pressed it to his face, still emitting strangled grunts of laughter as he conducted his mopping up.

“Chritht, laddie,” he said at last, lisping heavily. “Path me the whithky.”

Eyebrows raised, Jamie took the decanter from the table behind him and passed it to his grandfather, who removed the stopper and gulped a substantial amount of the contents without bothering about the formality of a glass.

“You think you’re not a Frather?” he said, lowering the decanter and exhaling gustily. “Ha!” He leaned back once more, belly rising and falling rapidly as he caught his breath. He pointed a long, skinny finger at Jamie.

“Your own father thtood right where you’re thstanding, laddie, and told me jutht what you did, the day he left Beaufort Cathtle once and for all.” The old man was growing calmer now; he coughed several times and wiped his face again.

“Did ye know that I’d tried to thtop your parents’ marriage by claiming that Ellen MacKenzie’s child wathn’t Brian’s?”

“Aye, I knew.” Jamie was leaning back on the table again, surveying his grandfather through narrowed eyes.

Lord Lovat snorted. “I’ll not thay there’s been always goodwill atween me and mine, but I know my thons. And my grandthons,” he added pointedly. “De’il take me and I think any one of ’em could be a cuckold, nay more than I could.”

Jamie didn’t turn a hair, but I couldn’t stop myself from glancing away from the old man. I found myself staring at his discarded teeth, the stained beechwood gleaming wetly amid the cake crumbs. Luckily Lord Lovat hadn’t noticed my slight motion.

He went on, serious once more. “Now, then. Dougal MacKenzie of Leoch hath declared for Charles. D’ye call him your chief? Is that what ye’re telling me – that ye’ve given him an oath?”

“No. I havena sworn to anyone.”

“Not even Charles?” The old man was fast, pouncing on this like a cat on a mouse. I could almost see his tail twitch as he watched Jamie, slanted eyes deep-set and gleaming under crepey lids.

Jamie’s eyes were fixed on the leaping flames, his shadow motionless on the wall behind him.

“He hasna asked me.” This was true. Charles had had no need to request an oath from Jamie – having precluded the necessity by signing Jamie’s name to his Bond of Association. Still, I knew that he had not, in fact, given his word to Charles was important to Jamie. If he must betray the man, let it not be as an acknowledged chief. The idea that the entire world thought such an oath existed was a matter of much less concern.

Simon grunted again. Without his false teeth, his nose and chin came close together, making the lower half of his face oddly foreshortened.

“Then nothing hampers you to thwear to me, as chief of your clan,” he said quietly. The twitching tail was less visible, but still there. I could almost hear the thoughts in his head, gliding round on padded feet. With Jamie’s loyalty sworn to him, rather than Charles, Lovat’s power would be increased. As would his wealth, with a share of the income from Lallybroch that he might claim as his chieftain’s due. The prospect of a dukedom drew slightly nearer, gleaming through the mist.

“Nothing save my own will,” Jamie agreed pleasantly. “But that’s some small obstacle, no?” His own eyes creased at the corners as they narrowed further.

“Mmphm.” Lovat’s eyes were almost closed, and he shook his head slowly from side to side. “Oh, aye, lad, you’re your father’s thon. Thtubborn as a block, and twith ath thtupid. I thould have known that Brian would thire nothing but fools from that harlot.”

Jamie reached forward and plucked the beechwood teeth from the plate. “Ye’d better put these back, ye auld gomerel,” he said rudely. “I canna understand a word ye say.”

His grandfather’s mouth widened in a humorless smile that showed the yellowed stump of a lone broken tooth in the lower jaw.

“No?” he said. “Will ye underthand a bargain?” He shot a quick look at me, seeing nothing more than another counter to be put into play. “Your oath for your wife’s honor, how’s that?”

Jamie laughed out loud, still holding the teeth in one hand.

“Oh, aye? D’ye mean to force her before my eyes, then, Grandsire?” He lounged back contemptuously, hand on the table. “Go ahead, and when she’s done wi’ ye, I’ll send Aunt Frances up to sweep up the pieces.”

His grandfather looked him over calmly. “Not I, lad.” One side of the toothless mouth rose in a lopsided smile as he turned his head to look at me. “Though I’ve taken my pleasure with worthe.” The cold malice in the dark eyes made me want to pull my cloak over my breasts in protection; unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing one.

“How many men are there in Beaufort, Jamie? How many, who’d be of a mind to put your thathenach wench to the only uth thee’s good for? You cannot guard her night and day.”

Jamie straightened slowly, the great shadow echoing his movements on the wall. He stared down at his grandfather with no expression on his face.

“Oh, I think I needna worry, Grandsire,” he said softly. “For my wife’s a rare woman. A wisewoman, ye ken. A white lady, like Dame Aliset.”

I had never heard of Dame Aliset, but Lord Lovat plainly had; his head jerked round to stare at me, eyes sprung wide with shocked alarm. His mouth drooped open, but before he could speak, Jamie had gone on, an undercurrent of malice clearly audible in his smooth speech.

“The man that takes her in unholy embrace will have his privates blasted like a frostbitten apple,” he said, with relish, “and his soul will burn forever in hell.” He bared his teeth at his grandfather, and drew back his hand. “Like this.” The beechwood teeth landed in the midst of the fire with a plop, and at once began to sizzle.

41 THE SEER’S CURSE

Most of the Lowland Scots had gone over to Presbyterianism in the two centuries before. Some of the Highland clans had gone with them, but others, like the Frasers and MacKenzies, had kept their Catholic faith. Especially the Frasers, with their strong family ties to Catholic France.

There was a small chapel in Beaufort Castle, to serve the devotional uses of the Earl and his family, but Beauly Priory, ruined as it was, remained the burying place of the Lovats, and the floor of the open-roofed chancel was paved thick with the flat tombstones of those who lay under them.

It was a peaceful place, and I walked there sometimes, in spite of the cold, blustery weather. I had no idea whether Old Simon had meant his threat against me, or whether Jamie’s comparing me to Dame Aliset – who turned out to be a legendary “white woman” or healer, the Scottish equivalent of La Dame Blanche – was sufficient to put a stop to that threat. But I thought that no one was likely to accost me among the tombs of extinct Frasers.

One afternoon, a few days after the scene in the study, I walked through a gap in the ruined Priory wall and found that for once, I didn’t have it to myself. The tall woman I had seen outside Lovat’s study was there, leaning against one of the red-stone tombs, arms folded about her for warmth, long legs thrust out like a stork.

I made to turn aside, but she saw me, and motioned me to join her.

“You’ll be my lady Broch Tuarach?” she said, though there was no more than a hint of question in her soft Highland voice.

“I am. And you’re… Maisri?”

A small smile lit her face. She had a most intriguing face, slightly asymmetrical, like a Modigliani painting, and long black hair that flowed loose around her shoulders, streaked with white, though she was plainly still young. A seer, hm? I thought she looked the part.

“Aye, I have the Sight,” she said, the smile widening a bit on her lopsided mouth.

“Do mind-reading, too, do you?” I asked.

She laughed, the sound vanishing on the wind that moaned through the ruined walls.

“No, lady. But I do read faces, and…”

“And mine’s an open book. I know,” I said, resigned.

We stood side by side for a time then, watching tiny spatters of fine sleet dashing against the sandstone and the thick brown grass that overgrew the kirkyard.

“They do say as you’re a white lady,” Maisri observed suddenly. I could feel her watching me intently, but with none of the nervousness that seemed common to such an observation.

“They do say that,” I agreed.

“Ah.” She didn’t speak again, just stared down at her feet, long and elegant, stockinged in wool and clad in leather sandals. My own toes, rather more sheltered, were growing numb, and I thought hers must be frozen solid, if she’d been here any time.

“What are you doing up here?” I asked. The Priory was a beautiful, peaceful place in good weather, but not much of a roost in the cold winter sleet.

“I come here to think,” she said. She gave me a slight smile, but was plainly preoccupied. Whatever she was thinking, her thoughts weren’t overly pleasant.

“To think about what?” I asked, hoisting myself up to sit on the tomb beside her. The worn figure of a knight lay on the lid, his claymore clasped to his bosom, the hilt forming a cross over his heart.

“I want to know why!” she burst out. Her thin face was suddenly alight with indignation.

“Why what?”

“Why! Why can I see what will happen, when there’s no mortal thing I can be doin’ to change it or stop it? What’s the good of a gift like that? It’s no a gift, come to that – it’s a damn curse, though I havena done anything to be cursed like this!”

She turned and glared balefully at Thomas Fraser, serene under his helm, with the hilt of his sword clasped under crossed hands.

“Aye, and maybe it’s your curse, ye auld gomerel! You and the rest o’ your damned family. Did ye ever think that?” she asked suddenly, turning to me. Her brows arched high over brown eyes that sparked with furious intelligence.

“Did ye ever think perhaps that it’s no your own fate at all that makes you what ye are? That maybe ye have the Sight or the power only because it’s necessary to someone else, and it’s nothing to do wi’ you at all – except that it’s you has it, and has to suffer the having of it. Have you?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Or yes, since you say it, I have wondered. Why me? You ask that all the time, of course. But I’ve never come up with a satisfactory answer. You think perhaps you have the Sight because it’s a curse on the Frasers – to know their deaths ahead of time? That’s a hell of an idea.”

“A hell is right,” she agreed bitterly. She leaned back against the sarcophagus of red stone, staring out at the sleet that sprayed across the top of the broken wall.

“What d’ye think?” she asked suddenly. “Do I tell him?”

I was startled.

“Who? Lord Lovat?”

“Aye, his lordship. He asks what I see, and beats me when I tell him there’s naught to see. He knows, ye ken; he sees it in my face when I’ve had the Sight. But that’s the only power I’ve got; the power not to say.” The long white fingers snaked out from her cloak, playing nervously with the folds of soaked cloth.

“There’s always the chance of it, isn’t there?” she said. Her head was bent so that the hood of her cloak shielded her face from my gaze. “There’s a chance that my telling would make a difference. It has, now and then, ye know. I told Lachlan Gibbons when I saw his son-in-law wrapped in seaweed, and the eels stirring beneath his shirt. Lachlan listened; he went out straightaway and stove a hole in his son-in-law’s boat.” She laughed, remembering. “Lord, there was the kebbie-lebbie to do! But when the great storm came the next week, three men were drowned, and Lachlan’s son-in-law was safe at hame, still mending his boat. And when I saw him next, his shirt hung dry on him, and the seaweed was gone from his hair.”

“So it can happen,” I said softly. “Sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” she said, nodding, still staring at the ground. Lady Sarah Fraser lay at her feet, the lady’s stone surmounted with a skull atop crossed bones. Hodie mihi cras tibi, said the inscription. Sic transit gloria mundi. My turn today, yours tomorrow. And thus passes away the glory of the world.

“Sometimes not. When I see a man wrapped in his winding sheet, the illness follows – and there’s naught to be done about that.”

“Perhaps,” I said. I looked at my own hands, spread on the stone beside me. Without medicine, without instruments, without knowledge – yes, then illness was fate, and naught to be done. But if a healer was near, and had the things to heal with… was it possible that Maisri saw the shadow of a coming illness, as a real – if usually invisible – symptom, much like a fever or a rash? And then only the lack of medical facilities made the reading of such symptoms a sentence of death? I would never know.

“We aren’t ever going to know,” I said, turning to her. “We can’t say. We know things that other people don’t know, and we can’t say why or how. But we have got it – and you’re right, it’s a curse. But if you have knowledge, and it may prevent harm… do you think it could cause harm?”

She shook her head.

“I canna say. If you knew ye were to die soon, are there things you’d do? And would they be good things only that ye’d do, or would ye take the last chance ye might have to do harm to your enemies – harm that might otherwise be left alone?”

“Damned if I know.” We were quiet for a time, watching the sleet turn to snow, and the blowing flakes whirl up in gusts through the ruined tracery of the Priory wall.

“Sometimes I know there’s something there, like,” Maisri said suddenly, “but I can block it out of my mind, not look. ’Twas like that with his lordship; I knew there was something, but I’d managed not to see it. But then he bade me look, and say the divining spell to make the vision come clear. And I did.” The hood of her cloak slipped back as she tilted her head, looking up at the wall of the Priory as it soared above us, ochre and white and red, with the mortar crumbling between its stones. White-streaked black hair spilled down her back, free in the wind.

“He was standing there before the fire, but it was daylight, and clear to see. A man stood behind him, still as a tree, and his face covered in black. And across his lordship’s face there fell the shadow of an ax.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, but the shiver ran up my spine nonetheless. She sighed at last, and turned to me.

“Weel, I will tell him, then, and let him do what he will. Doom him or save him, that I canna do. It’s his choice – and the Lord Jesus help him.”

She turned to go, and I slid off the tomb, landing on the Lady Sarah’s slab.

“Maisri,” I said. She turned back to look at me, eyes black as the shadows among the tombs.

“Aye?”

“What do you see, Maisri?” I asked, and stood waiting, facing her, hands dropped to my sides.

She stared at me hard, above and below, behind and beside. At last she smiled faintly, nodding.

“I see naught but you, lady,” she said softly. “There’s only you.”

She turned and disappeared down the path between the trees, leaving me among the blowing flakes of snow.

Doom, or save. That I cannot do. For I have no power beyond that of knowledge, no ability to bend others to my will, no way to stop them doing what they will. There is only me.

I shook the snow from the folds of my cloak, and turned to follow Maisri down the path, sharing her bitter knowledge that there was only me. And I was not enough.

Old Simon’s manner was much as usual over the course of the next two or three weeks, but I imagined that Maisri had kept her intention of telling him about her visions. While he had seemed on the verge of summoning the tacksmen and tenants to march, suddenly he backed off, saying that there was no hurry, after all. This shilly-shallying infuriated Young Simon, who was champing at the bit to go to war and cover himself with glory.

“It’s not a matter of urgency,” Old Simon said, for the dozenth time. He lifted an oatcake, sniffed at it, and set it down again. “Perhaps we’ll do best to wait for the spring planting, after all.”

“They could be in London before spring!” Young Simon glowered across the dinner table at his father and reached for the butter. “If ye will not go yourself, then let me take the men to join His Highness!”

Lord Lovat grunted. “You’ve the Devil’s own impatience,” he said, “but not half his judgment. Will ye never learn to wait?”

“The time for waiting’s long since past!” Simon burst out. “The Camerons, the MacDonalds, the MacGillivrays – they’ve all been there since the first. Are we to come meachin’ along at the finish, to find ourselves beggars, and taking second place to Clanranald and Glengarry? Fat chance you’ll have of a dukedom then!”

Lovat had a wide, expressive mouth; even in old age, it retained some trace of humor and sensuality. Neither was visible at the moment. He pressed his lips tight together, surveying his heir without enthusiasm.

“Marry in haste, repent at leisure,” he said. “And it’s more true when choosing a laird than a lass. A woman can be got rid of.”

Young Simon snorted and looked at Jamie for support. Over the last two months, his initial suspicious hostility had faded into a reluctant respect for his bastard relative’s obvious expertise in the art of war.

“Jamie says…” he began.

“I ken well enough what he says,” Old Simon interrupted. “He’s said it often enough. I shall make up my own mind in my own time. But bear it in mind, lad – when it comes to declaring yourself in a war, there’s little to be lost by waiting.”

“Waiting to see who wins,” Jamie murmured, studiously wiping his plate with a bit of bread. The old man looked up sharply, but evidently decided to ignore this contribution.

“Ye gave your word to the Stuarts,” Young Simon continued stubbornly, paying no heed to his father’s displeasure. “Ye dinna mean to break it, surely? What will people say of your honor?”

“The same things they said in ’15,” his father calmly replied. “Most of those who ‘said things’ then are dead, bankrupt, or paupers in France. But I am still here.”

“But…” Young Simon was red in the face, the usual result of this sort of conversation with his father.

“That will do,” the old Earl interrupted sharply. He shook his head as he glared at his son, lips tight with disapproval. “Christ. Sometimes I could wish that Brian hadna died. He may have been a fool, too, but at least he knew when to stop talking.”

Both Young Simon and Jamie flushed with anger, but after a wary glance at each other, turned their attentions to their food.

“And what are you looking at?” Lord Lovat growled, catching my eye on him as he turned away from his son.

“You,” I said bluntly. “You don’t look at all well.” He didn’t, even for a man in his seventies. No more than middle-height, slumped and broadened by age, he was normally still a solid-looking man, giving the impression that his barrel chest and rounded paunch were firm and healthy under his linen. Lately he had begun to look flabby, though, as if he had shrunk a bit within his skin. The wrinkled bags beneath his eyes were darkened, and his skin had a sickly pallor to it.

“Mphm,” he grunted. “And why not? I get nay rest when I sleep, nor comfort when I’m awake. No wonder if I dinna look like a bridegroom.”

“Oh, but ye do, Father,” said Young Simon maliciously, seeing a chance to get a bit of his own back. “One at the end of his honeymoon, wi’ all the juice sapped out of him.”

“Simon!” said Lady Frances. Still, there was a ripple of laughter around the table at this, and even Lord Lovat’s mouth twitched slightly.

“Aye?” he said. “Well, I’d sooner suffer soreness from that cause, I’ll tell ye, lad.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, and pushed away the platter of boiled turnips being offered. He reached for his wineglass, raised it to his nose for a sniff, then morosely put it down again.

“It’s ill-mannered to stare,” he remarked coldly to me. “Or perhaps the English have different standards of politeness?”

I flushed slightly, but didn’t drop my eyes. “I was just wondering – you don’t have an appetite, and you don’t drink. What other symptoms have you?”

“Going to prove yourself some worth, eh?” Lovat leaned back in his chair, folding his hands across his broad stomach like an elderly frog. “A healer, my grandson says. A white lady, aye?” He flicked a basilisk glance at Jamie, who simply went on eating, ignoring his grandfather. Lovat grunted, and tilted his head ironically in my direction.

“Well, I dinna drink, lady, for I canna piss, and I’ve little wish to blow up like a pig’s bladder. And I dinna rest, for I rise a dozen times a night to make use of my pot, and damn little use it gets. So what have ye to say to that, Dame Aliset?”

“Father,” murmured Lady Frances, “really, I don’t think you should…”

“Could be an infection of the bladder, but it sounds like prostatitis to me,” I replied. I picked up my wineglass and took a mouthful, savoring it before letting it slide down my throat. I smiled demurely at his lordship across my glass as I set it down.

“Oh, it does?” he said, eyebrows raised high. “And what’s that, pray?”

I pushed back my sleeves and raised my hands, flexing my fingers like a magician about to perform some act of prestidigitation. I held up my left forefinger.

“The prostate gland in males,” I said instructively, “encircles the tube of the urethra – which is the passage that leads from the bladder to the outside.” I clasped two fingers of my right hand in a circle around my left forefinger, in illustration. “When the prostate becomes inflamed or enlarged – and that’s called prostatitis, when it does – it clamps down on the urethra” – I narrowed the circle of my fingers – “cutting off the flow of urine. Very common in older men. Do you see?”

Lady Frances, failing to make any impression on her father with her opinions of proper dinner conversation, was whispering agitatedly to her younger sister, both of them watching me with deeper suspicion than usual.

Lord Lovat watched my little demonstration in fascination.

“Aye, I see,” he said. The slanted cat-eyes narrowed, looking speculatively at my fingers. “What’s to do about it, then, if ye’ve so much learning on the subject?”

I thought, frowning as I searched my memory. I had never actually seen – much less treated – a case of prostatitis, as it wasn’t a condition that much afflicted young soldiers. Still, I had read medical texts where it was described; I remembered the treatment, because it had caused such hilarity among the student nurses, who had pored in fascinated horror over the rather graphic illustrations in the text.

“Well,” I said, “barring surgery, there are really only two things you can do. You can insert a metal rod through the penis and up into the bladder, to force the urethra open” – I jabbed my forefinger through the constricting circle – “or you can massage the prostate itself, to reduce the swelling. Through the rectum,” I added helpfully.

I heard a faint choking noise next to me, and glanced up at Jamie. His eyes were still fixed on his plate, but the tide of crimson was creeping upward from his collar, and the tips of his ears blazed red. He quivered slightly. I looked around the table, to find a phalanx of fascinated gazes fixed on me. The Lady Frances, Aline, and the other women were staring at me with varying expressions, ranging from curiosity to disgust, while the men all wore variations of revolted horror.

The exception to the general reaction was Lord Lovat himself, who was rubbing his chin thoughtfully, eyes half-closed.

“Mmphm,” he said. “Hell of a choice, there. A stick up the cock, or a finger up the backside, eh?”

“More like two or three,” I said. “Repeatedly.” I gave him a small, decorous smile.

“Ah.” A similar small smile decorated Lord Lovat’s mouth, and he slowly lifted his gaze, fixing deep blue eyes on mine with an expression of mockery tinged with challenge.

“That sounds… diverting,” he observed mildly. The slanted eyes slid down over my hands, assessing.

“You’ve lovely hands, my dear,” he said. “Prettily kept, and such long white slender fingers, aye?”

Jamie brought both his own hands down on the table with a crash and stood up. He leaned across the table, bringing his face within a foot of his grandfather’s.

“And you’re needing such attentions, Grandsire,” he said. “I’ll see to it myself.” He spread out his hands on the tabletop, broad and massive, each long finger the rough diameter of a pistol barrel. “It’s no pleasure to me to be stickin’ my fingers up your hairy auld arse,” he informed his grandfather, “but I expect it’s my filial duty to save ye from exploding in a shower of piss, no?”

Frances emitted a faint squeak.

Lord Lovat eyed his grandson with considerable disfavor, then rose slowly from his seat.

“Don’t trouble yourself,” he said shortly. “I’ll ha’ one of the maidservants do it.” He waved a hand at the company, giving notice that we might continue the meal, and left the hall, pausing to look speculatively at a young serving girl coming in with a platter of sliced pheasant. Eyes wide, she turned sideways to edge past him.

There was a dead silence over the dinner table following his lordship’s exit. Young Simon looked at me and opened his mouth. Then he glanced at Jamie, and closed it again. He cleared his throat.

“I’ll have the salt, if ye please,” he said.

“…and in consequence of the regrettable infirmity that prevents me from personal attendance upon Your Highness, I send by the hand of my son and heir a token of the loyalty – nay, make that ‘regard’ – a token of the regard in which I have long cherished His Majesty and Your Highness.” Lord Lovat paused, frowning at the ceiling.

“What shall we send, Gideon?” he asked the secretary. “Rich-looking, but not so much I can’t say it was only a trifling present of no importance.”

Gideon sighed and wiped his face with a handkerchief. A stout, middle-aged man with thinning hair and round red cheeks, he plainly found the heat of the bedroom fire oppressive.

“The ring your lordship had from the Earl of Mar?” he suggested, without hope. A drop of sweat fell from his double chin onto the letter he was taking down, and he surreptitiously blotted it with his sleeve.

“Not expensive enough,” his lordship judged, “and too many political associations.” The mottled fingers tapped pensively on the coverlet as he thought.

Old Simon had done it up brown, I thought. He was wearing his best nightshirt, and was propped up in bed with an impressive panoply of medicines arrayed on the table, attended by his personal physician, Dr. Menzies, a small man with a squint who kept eyeing me with considerable doubt. I supposed the old man simply distrusted Young Simon’s powers of imagination, and had staged this elaborate tableau so that his heir might faithfully report Lord Lovat’s state of decrepitude when he presented himself to Charles Stuart.

“Ha,” said his lordship with satisfaction. “We’ll send the gold and sterling picnic set. That’s rich enough, but too frivolous to be interpreted as political support. Besides,” he added practically, “the spoon’s dented. All right then,” he said to the secretary, “let’s go on with ‘As Your Highness is aware…’ ”

I exchanged a glance with Jamie, who hid a smile in response.

“I think you’ve given him what he needs, Sassenach,” he had told me as we undressed after our fateful dinner the week before.

“And what’s that?” I asked, “an excuse to molest the maidservants?”

“I doubt he bothers greatly wi’ excuses of that sort,” Jamie said dryly. “Nay, you’ve given him a way to walk both sides – as usual. If he’s got an impressive-sounding disease that keeps him to his bed, then he canna be blamed for not appearing himself wi’ the men he promised. At the same time, if he sends his heir to fight, the Stuarts will credit Lovat with keeping his promise, and if it goes wrong, the Old Fox will claim to the English that he didna intend to give any aid to the Stuarts, but Young Simon went on his own account.”

“Spell ‘prostatitis’ for Gideon, would ye, lass?” Lord Lovat called to me, breaking into my thoughts. “And mind ye write it out carefully, clot,” he said to his secretary, “I dinna want His Highness to misread it.”

“P-r-o-s-t-a-t-i-t-i-s,” I spelled slowly, for Gideon’s benefit. “And how is it this morning, anyway?” I asked, coming to stand by his lordship’s bedside.

“Greatly improved, I thank ye,” the old man said, grinning up at me with a fine display of false teeth. “Want to see me piss?”

“Not just now, thanks,” I said politely.

It was a clear, icy day in mid-December when we left Beauly to join Charles Stuart and the Highland army. Against all advice, Charles had pressed on into England, defying weather and common sense, as well as his generals. But at last, in Derby, the generals had prevailed, the Highland chiefs refusing to go farther, and the Highland army was returning northward. An urgent letter from Charles to Jamie had urged us to head south “without delay,” to rendezvous with His Highness upon his return to Edinburgh. Young Simon, looking every inch the clan chieftain in his crimson tartan, rode at the head of a column of men. Those men with mounts followed him, while the larger number on foot walked behind.

Being mounted, we rode with Simon at the head of the column, until such time as we would reach Comar. There we would part company, Simon and the Fraser troops to go to Edinburgh, Jamie ostensibly escorting me to Lallybroch before returning to Edinburgh himself. He had, of course, no intention of so returning, but that was none of Simon’s business.

At midmorning, I emerged from a small wooded clump by the side of the track, to find Jamie waiting impatiently. Hot ale had been served to the departing men, to hearten them for the journey. And while I had myself found that hot ale made a surprisingly good breakfast, I had also found it had a marked effect on the kidneys.

Jamie snorted. “Women,” he said. “How can ye all take such the devil of a time to do such a simple thing as piss? Ye make as much fuss over it as my grandsire.”

“Well, you can come along next time and watch,” I suggested acerbically. “Perhaps you’ll have some helpful suggestions.”

He merely snorted again, and turned back to watch the column of men filing past, but he was smiling nonetheless. The clear, bright day raised everyone’s spirits, but Jamie was in a particularly good mood this morning. And no wonder; we were going home. I knew he didn’t deceive himself that all would be well; this war would have its price. But if we had failed to stop Charles, it might still be that we could save the small corner of Scotland that lay closest to us – Lallybroch. That much might be still within our power.

I glanced at the trailing column of clansmen.

“Two hundred men make a fair show.”

“A hundred and seventy,” Jamie corrected absently, reaching for his horse’s reins.

“Are you sure?” I asked curiously. “Lord Lovat said he was sending two hundred. I heard him dictating the letter saying so.”

“Well, he didn’t.” Jamie swung into the saddle, then stood up in his stirrups, pointing down the slope ahead, to the distant spot where the Fraser banner with its stag’s-head crest fluttered at the head of the column.

“I counted them while I waited for you,” he explained. “Thirty cavalry up there wi’ Simon, then fifty wi’ broadswords and targes – those will be the men from the local Watch – and then the cottars, wi’ everything from scythes to hammers at their belts, and there’s ninety of those.”

“I suppose your grandfather’s betting on Prince Charles not counting them personally,” I observed cynically. “Trying to get credit for more than he’s sent.”

“Aye, but the names will be entered on the army rolls when they reach Edinburgh,” Jamie said, frowning. “I’d best see.”

I followed more sedately. I judged my mount to be approximately twenty years old, and capable of no more than a staid amble. Jamie’s mount was a trifle friskier, though still no match for Donas. The huge stallion had been left in Edinburgh, as Prince Charles wished to ride him on public occasions. Jamie had acceded to this request, as he harbored suspicions that Old Simon might well be capable of appropriating the big horse, should Donas come within reach of his rapacious grasp.

Judging from the tableau unfolding before me, Jamie’s estimate of his grandfather’s character had not been in error. Jamie had first ridden up alongside Young Simon’s clerk, and what looked from my vantage point like a heated argument ended when Jamie leaned from his saddle, grabbed the clerk’s reins, and dragged the indignant man’s horse out of line, onto the verge of the muddy track.

The two men dismounted and stood face-to-face, obviously going at it hammer and tongs. Young Simon, seeing the altercation, reined aside himself, motioning the rest of the column to proceed. A good deal of to and fro then ensued; we were close enough to see Simon’s face, flushed red with annoyance, the worried grimace on the clerk’s countenance, and a series of rather violent gestures on Jamie’s part.

I watched this pantomime in fascination, as the clerk, with a shrug of resignation, unfastened his saddlebag, scrabbled in the depths, and came up with several sheets of parchment. Jamie snatched these and skimmed rapidly through them, forefinger tracing the lines of writing. He seized one sheet, letting the rest drop to the ground, and shook it in Simon Fraser’s face. The Young Fox looked taken aback. He took the sheet, peered at it, then looked up in bewilderment. Jamie grabbed back the sheet, and with a sudden effort, ripped the tough parchment down, then across, and stuffed the pieces into his sporran.

I had halted my pony, who took advantage of the recess to nose about among the meager shreds of plant life still to be found. The back of Young Simon’s neck was bright red as he turned back to his horse, and I decided to keep out of the way. Jamie, remounted, came trotting back along the verge to join me, red hair flying like a banner in the wind, eyes gleaming with anger over tight-set lips.

“The filthy auld arse-wipe,” he said without ceremony.

“What’s he done?” I inquired.

“Listed the names of my men on his own rolls,” Jamie said. “Claimed them as part of his Fraser regiment. Mozie auld pout-worm!” He glanced back up the track with longing. “Pity we’ve come such a way; it’s too far to go back and proddle the auld mumper.”

I resisted the temptation to egg Jamie on to call his grandfather more names, and asked instead, “Why would he do that? Just to make it look as though he were making more of a contribution to the Stuarts?”

Jamie nodded, the tide of fury receding slightly from his cheeks.

“Aye, that. Make himself look better, at no cost. But not only that. The wretched auld nettercap wants my land back – he has, ever since he was forced to give it up when my parents wed. Now he thinks if it all comes right and he’s made Duke of Inverness, he can claim Lallybroch has been his all along, and me just his tenant – the proof being that he’s raised men from the estate to answer the Stuarts’ call to the clans.”

“Could he actually get away with something like that?” I asked doubtfully.

Jamie drew in a deep breath and released it, the cloud of vapor rising like dragon smoke from his nostrils. He smiled grimly and patted the sporran at his waist.

“Not now he can’t,” he said.

It was a two-day trip from Beauly to Lallybroch in good weather, given sound horses and dry ground, pausing for nothing more than the necessities of eating, sleeping, and personal hygiene. As it was, one of the horses went lame six miles out of Beauly, it snowed and sleeted and blew by turns, the boggy ground froze in patches of slippery ice, and what with one thing and another, it was nearly a week before we made our way down the last slope that led to the farmhouse at Lallybroch – cold, tired, hungry, and far from hygienic.

We were alone, just the two of us. Murtagh had been sent to Edinburgh with Young Simon and the Beaufort men-at-arms, to judge how matters stood with the Highland army.

The house stood solid among its outbuildings, white as the snow-streaked fields that surrounded it. I remembered vividly the emotions I had felt when I first saw the place. Granted, I had seen it first in the glow of a fine autumn day, not through sheets of blowing, icy snow, but even then it had seemed a welcoming refuge. The house’s impression of strength and serenity was heightened now by the warm lamplight spilling through the lower windows, soft yellow in the deepening gray of early evening.

The feeling of welcome grew even stronger when I followed Jamie through the front door, to be met by the mouth-watering smell of roasting meat and fresh bread.

“Supper,” Jamie said, closing his eyes in bliss as he inhaled the fragrant aromas. “God, I could eat a horse.” Melting ice dripped from the hem of his cloak, making wet spots on the wooden floor.

“I thought we were going to have to eat one of them,” I remarked, untying the strings of my cloak and brushing melting snow from my hair. “That poor creature you traded in Kirkinmill could barely hobble.”

The sound of our voices carried through the hall, and a door opened overhead, followed by the sound of small running feet and a cry of joy as the younger Jamie spotted his namesake below.

The racket of their reunion attracted the attention of the rest of the household, and before we knew it, we were enveloped in greetings and embraces as Jenny and the baby, little Maggie, Ian, Mrs. Crook, and assorted maidservants all rushed into the hall.

“It’s so good to see ye, my dearie!” Jenny said for the third time, standing on tiptoe to kiss Jamie. “Such news as we’ve heard of the army, we feared it would be months before ye came home.”

“Aye,” Ian said, “have ye brought any of the men back with ye, or is this only a visit?”

“Brought them back?” Arrested in the act of greeting his elder niece, Jamie stared at his brother-in-law, momentarily forgetting the little girl in his arms. Brought to a realization of her presence by her yanking his hair, he kissed her absently and handed her to me.

“What d’ye mean, Ian?” he demanded. “The men should all ha’ returned a month ago. Did some of them not come home?”

I held small Maggie tight, a dreadful feeling of foreboding coming over me as I watched the smile fade from Ian’s face.

“None of them came back, Jamie,” he said slowly, his long, good-humored face suddenly mirroring the grim expression he saw on Jamie’s. “We havena seen hide nor hair of any of them, since they marched awa’ with you.”

There was a shout from the dooryard outside, where Rabbie MacNab was putting away the horses. Jamie whirled, turned to the door and pushed it open, leaning out into the storm.

Over his shoulder, I could see a rider coming through the blowing snow. Visibility was too poor to make out his face, but that small, wiry figure, clinging monkeylike to the saddle, was unmistakable. “Fast as chain lightning,” Jamie had said, and clearly he was right; to make the trip from Beauly to Edinburgh, and then to Lallybroch in a week was a true feat of endurance. The coming rider was Murtagh, and it didn’t take Maisri’s gift of prophecy to tell us that the news he bore was ill.

42 REUNIONS

White with rage, Jamie flung back the door of Holyrood’s morning drawing room with a crash. Ewan Cameron leaped to his feet, upsetting the inkpot he had been using. Simon Fraser, Master of Lovat, was seated across the table, but merely raised thick black brows at his half-nephew’s entrance.

“Damn!” Ewan said, scrabbling in his sleeve for a handkerchief to mop the spreading puddle with. “What’s the matter wi’ ye, Fraser? Oh, good morning to ye, Mistress Fraser,” he added, seeing me behind Jamie.

“Where’s His Highness?” Jamie demanded without preamble.

“Stirling Castle,” Cameron replied, failing to find the handkerchief he was searching for. “Got a cloth, Fraser?”

“If I did, I’d choke ye with it,” Jamie said. He had relaxed slightly, upon finding that Charles Stuart was not in residence, but the corners of his lips were still tight. “Why have ye let my men be kept in the Tolbooth? I’ve just seen them, kept in a place I wouldna let pigs live! Surely to God you could have done something!”

Cameron flushed at this, but his clear brown eyes met Jamie’s steadily.

“I tried,” he said. “I told his Highness that I was sure it was a mistake – aye, and the thirty of them ten miles from the army when they were found, some mistake! – and besides, even if they’d really meant to desert, he didna have such a strength of men that he could afford to do without them. That’s all that kept him from ordering the lot of them to be hanged on the spot, ye ken,” he said, beginning to grow angry as the shock of Jamie’s entrance wore off. “God, man, it’s treason to desert in time of war!”

“Aye?” Jamie said skeptically. He nodded briefly to Young Simon, and pushed a chair in my direction before sitting down himself. “And have you sent orders to hang the twenty of your men who’ve gone home, Ewan? Or is it more like forty, now?”

Cameron flushed more deeply and dropped his eyes, concentrating on mopping up the ink with the cloth Simon Fraser handed him.

“They weren’t caught,” he muttered at last. He glanced up at Jamie, his thin face earnest. “Go to His Highness at Stirling,” he advised. “He was furious about the desertion, but after all, it was his orders sent ye to Beauly and left your men untended, aye? And he’s always thought well of ye, Jamie, and called ye friend. It might be he’ll pardon your men, and ye beg him for their lives.”

Picking up the ink-soaked cloth, he looked dubiously at it, then, with a muttered excuse, left to dispose of it outside, obviously eager to get away from Jamie.

Jamie sat sprawled in his chair, breathing through clenched teeth with a small hissing noise, eyes fixed on the small embroidered hanging on the wall that showed the Stuart coat of arms. The two stiff fingers of his right hand tapped slowly on the table. He had been in much the same state ever since Murtagh’s arrival at Lallybroch with the news that the thirty men of Jamie’s command had been apprehended in the act of desertion and imprisoned in Edinburgh’s notorious Tolbooth Prison, under sentence of death.

I didn’t myself think that Charles intended to execute the men. As Ewan Cameron pointed out, the Highland army had need of every able-bodied man it could muster. The push into England that Charles had argued for had been costly, and the influx of support he had foreseen from the English countryside had not materialized. Not only that; to execute Jamie’s men in his absence would have been an act of political idiocy and personal betrayal too great even for Charles Stuart to contemplate.

No, I imagined that Cameron was right, and the men would be pardoned eventually. Jamie undoubtedly realized it, too, but the realization was poor consolation to him, faced with the matching realization that rather than seeing his men safely removed from the risks of a deteriorating campaign, his orders had landed them in one of the worst prisons in all of Scotland, branded as cowards and sentenced to a shameful death by hanging.

This, coupled with the imminent prospect of leaving the men in their dark, filthy imprisonment, to go to Stirling and face the humiliation of pleading with Charles, was more than sufficient to explain the look on Jamie’s face – that of a man who has just breakfasted on broken glass.

Young Simon also was silent, frowning, wide forehead creasing with thought.

“I’ll come with ye to His Highness,” he said abruptly.

“You will?” Jamie glanced at his half-uncle in surprise, then his eyes narrowed at Simon. “Why?”

Simon gave a half-grin. “Blood’s blood, after all. Or do ye think I’d try to claim your men, like Father did?”

“Would you?

“I might,” Simon said frankly, “if I thought there was a chance of it doing me some good. More likely to cause trouble, though, is what I think. I’ve no wish to fight wi’ the MacKenzies – or you, nevvie,” he added, the grin widening. “Rich as Lallybroch might be, it’s a good long way from Beauly, and likely to be the devil of a fight to get hold of it, either by force or by the courts. I told Father so, but he hears what he wants to.”

The young man shook his head and settled his swordbelt around his hips.

“There’s like to be better pickings with the army; certainly there will be with a restored king. And-” he concluded, “if that army’s going to fight again like they did at Preston, they’ll need every man they can get. I’ll go with ye,” he repeated firmly.

Jamie nodded, a slow smile dawning on his face. “I thank ye, then, Simon. It will be of help.”

Simon nodded. “Aye, well. It wouldna hurt matters any for ye to ask Dougal MacKenzie to come speak for ye, either. He’s in Edinburgh just now.”

“Dougal MacKenzie?” Jamie’s brows rose quizzically. “Aye, I suppose it would do no harm, but…”

“Do no harm? Man, did ye no hear? The MacKenzie’s Prince Charles’s fair-haired boy the noo.” Simon lounged back in his seat, looking mockingly at his half-nephew.

“What for?” I asked. “What on earth has he done?” Dougal had brought two hundred and fifty men-at-arms to fight for the Stuart cause, but there were a number of chieftains who had made greater contributions.

“Ten thousand pounds,” Simon said, savoring the words as he rolled them around on his tongue. “Ten thousand pounds in fine sterling, Dougal MacKenzie’s brought to lay at the feet of his sovereign. And it willna come amiss, either,” he said matter-of-factly, dropping his lounging pose. “Cameron was just telling me that Charles had gone through the last of the Spanish money, and damn little coming in from the English supporters he’d counted on. Dougal’s ten thousand will keep the army in weapons and food for a few more weeks, at least, and with luck, by then he’ll ha’ got more from France.” At last, realizing that his reckless cousin was providing him with an excellent distraction for the English, Louis was reluctantly agreeing to cough up a bit of money. It was a long time coming, though.

I stared at Jamie, his face reflecting my own bewilderment. Where on earth would Dougal MacKenzie have gotten ten thousand pounds? Suddenly I remembered where I had heard that sum mentioned once before – in the thieves’ hole at Cranesmuir, where I had spent three endless days and nights, awaiting trial on charges of witchcraft.

“Geillis Duncan!” I exclaimed. I felt cold at the memory of that conversation, carried out in the pitch-blackness of a miry pit, my companion no more than a voice in the dark. The drawing-room fire was warm, but I pulled my cloak tighter around me.

“I diverted near on to ten thousand pounds,” Geillis had said, boasting of the thefts accomplished by judicious forgery of her late husband’s name. Arthur Duncan, whom she had killed by poison, had been the procurator fiscal for the district. “Ten thousand pounds for the Jacobite cause. When it comes to rebellion, I shall know that I helped.”

“She stole it,” I said, feeling a tremor run up my arms at the thought of Geillis Duncan, convicted of witchcraft, gone to a fiery death beneath the branches of a rowan tree. Geillis Duncan, who had escaped death just long enough to give birth to the child she bore to her lover – Dougal MacKenzie. “She stole it and she gave it to Dougal; or he took it from her, no telling which, now.” Agitated, I stood up and paced back and forth before the fire.

“That bastard!” I said. “That’s what he was doing in Paris two years ago!”

“What?” Jamie was frowning at me, Simon staring openmouthed.

“Visiting Charles Stuart. He came to see whether Charles were really planning a rebellion. Maybe he promised the money then, maybe that’s what encouraged Charles to risk coming to Scotland – the promise of Geillis Duncan’s money. But Dougal couldn’t give Charles the money openly while Colum was alive – Colum would have asked questions; he was much too honest a man to have used stolen money, no matter who stole it in the first place.”

“I see.” Jamie nodded, eyes hooded in thought. “But now Colum is dead,” he said quietly. “And Dougal MacKenzie is the Prince’s favorite.”

“Which is all to the good for you, as I’ve been saying,” Simon put in, impatient with talk of people he didn’t know and matters he only half-understood. “Go find him; likely he’ll be in the World’s End at this time o’ day.”

“Do you think he’ll speak to the Prince for you?” I asked Jamie, worried. Dougal had been Jamie’s foster father for a time, but the relationship had assuredly had its ups and downs. Dougal might not want to risk his newfound popularity with the Prince by speaking out for a bunch of cowards and deserters.

The Young Fox might lack his father’s years, but he had a good bit of his sire’s acumen. The heavy black brows quirked upward.

“MacKenzie still wants Lallybroch, no? And if he thinks Father and I might have an eye on reclaiming your land, he’ll be more eager to help you get your men back, aye? Cost him a lot more to fight us for it than to deal wi’ you, once the war’s over.” He nodded, happily chewing his upper lip as he contemplated the ramifications of the situation.

“I’ll go wave a copy of Father’s list under his nose before ye speak to him. You come in and tell him you’ll see me in hell before ye let me claim your men, and then we’ll all go to Stirling together.” He grinned at Jamie complicitously.

“I always thought there was some reason why ‘Scot’ rhymed with ‘plot,’ ” I remarked.

“What?” Both men looked up, startled.

“Never mind,” I said, shaking my head. “Blood will tell.”

I stayed in Edinburgh while Jamie and his rival uncles rode to Stirling to straighten out matters with the Prince. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t stay at Holyroodhouse, but found lodgings in one of the wynds above the Canongate. It was a small, cold, cramped room, but I wasn’t in it much.

The Tolbooth prisoners couldn’t come out, but there was nothing barring visitors who wanted to get in. Fergus and I visited the prison daily, and a small amount of discriminating bribery allowed me to pass food and medicine to the men from Lallybroch. Theoretically, I wasn’t allowed to talk privately to the prisoners, but here again, the system had a certain amount of slip to it, when suitably greased, and I managed to talk alone with Ross the smith on two or three occasions.

“ ’Twas my fault, lady,” he said at once, the first time I saw him. “I should ha’ had the sense to make the men go in small groups of three and four, not altogether like we did. I was afraid of losing some, though; the most of them had never been more than five mile from home before.”

“You needn’t blame yourself,” I assured him. “From what I heard, it was only ill luck that you were caught. Don’t worry; Jamie has gone to see the Prince at Stirling; he’ll have you out of here in no time.”

He nodded, tiredly brushing back a lock of hair. He was filthy and unkempt, and a good bit diminished from the burly, robust craftsman he had been a few months before. Still, he smiled at me, and thanked me for the food.

“It willna come amiss,” he said frankly. “It’s little we get but slops. D’ye think…” He hesitated. “D’ye think ye might manage a few blankets, my lady? I wouldna ask, only four of the men have the ague, and…”

“I’ll manage,” I said.

I left the prison, wondering exactly how I would manage. While the main army had gone south to invade England, Edinburgh was still an occupied city. With soldiers, lords, and hangers-on drifting constantly in and out, goods of all sorts were high-priced and in short supply. Blankets and warm clothes could be found, but they would cost a lot, and I had precisely ten shillings left in my purse.

There was a banker in Edinburgh, a Mr. Waterford, who had in the past handled some of Lallybroch’s business and investments, but Jamie had removed all his funds from the bank some months before, fearing that bank-held assets might be seized by the Crown. The money had been converted to gold, some of it sent to Jared in France for safekeeping, the rest of it hidden in the farmhouse. All of it equally inaccessible to me at the moment.

I paused on the street to think, passersby jostling past me on the cobbles. If I didn’t have money, I had still a few things of value. The crystal Raymond had given me in Paris – while the crystal itself was of no particular value, its gold mounting and chain were. My wedding rings – no, I didn’t want to part with those, even temporarily. But the pearls… I felt inside my pocket, checking to see that the pearl necklace Jamie had given me on our wedding day was still safely sewn into the seam of my skirt.

It was; the small, irregular beads of the freshwater pearls were hard and smooth under my fingers. Not as expensive as oriental pearls, but it was still a fine necklace, with gold pierced-work roundels between the pearls. It had belonged to Jamie’s mother, Ellen. I thought she would have liked to see it used to comfort his men.

“Five pounds,” I said firmly. “It’s worth ten, and I could get six for it, if I cared to walk all the way up the hill to another shop.” I had no idea whether this was true or not, but I reached out as though to pick up the necklace from the counter anyway, pretending that I was about to leave the pawnbroker’s shop. The pawnbroker, Mr. Samuels, placed a quick hand over the necklace, his eagerness letting me know that I should have asked six pounds to start with.

“Three pound ten, then,” he said. “It’s beggaring me own family to do it, but for a fine lady like yourself…”

The small bell over the shop door chimed behind me as the door opened, and there was the sound of hesitant footsteps on the worn boards of the pawnshop floor.

“Excuse me,” began a girl’s voice, and I whirled around, pearl necklace forgotten, to see the shadow of the pawnbroker’s balls falling across the face of Mary Hawkins. She had grown in the last year, and filled out as well. There was a new maturity and dignity in her manner, but she was still very young. She blinked once, and then fell on me with a shriek of joy, her fur collar tickling my nose as she hugged me tight.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, disentangling myself at last.

“Father’s sister lives here,” she replied. “I’m st-staying with her. Or do you mean why am I here?” She waved a hand at the dingy confines of Mr. Samuels’s emporium.

“Well, that too,” I said. “But that can wait a bit.” I turned to the pawnbroker. “Four pound six, or I’ll walk up the hill,” I told him. “Make up your mind, I’m in a hurry.”

Grumbling to himself, Mr. Samuels reached beneath his counter for the cash box, as I turned back to Mary.

“I have to buy some blankets. Can you come with me?”

She glanced outside, to where a small man in a footman’s livery stood by the door, clearly waiting for her. “Yes, if you’ll come with me afterward. Oh, Claire, I’m so glad to see you!”

“He sent a message to me,” Mary confided, as we walked down the hill. “Alex. A friend brought me his letter.” Her face glowed as she spoke his name, but there was a small frown between her brows as well.

“When I found he was in Edinburgh, I m-made Father send me to visit Aunt Mildred. He didn’t mind,” she added bitterly. “It m-made him ill to look at me, after what happened in Paris. He was happy to get me out of his house.”

“So you’ve seen Alex?” I asked. I wondered how the young curate had fared, since I had last seen him. I also wondered how he had found the courage to write to Mary.

“Yes. He didn’t ask me to come,” she added quickly. “I c-came by myself.” Her chin lifted in defiance, but there was a small quiver as she said, “He… he wouldn’t have written to me, but he thought he was d-dying, and he wanted me to know… to know…” I put an arm about her shoulders and turned quickly into one of the closes, standing with her out of the flow of jostling street traffic.

“It’s all right,” I said to her, patting her helplessly, knowing that nothing I could do would make it right. “You came, and you’ve seen him, that’s the important thing.”

She nodded, speechless, and blew her nose. “Yes,” she said thickly, at last. “We’ve had… two months. I k-keep telling myself that that’s more than most people ever have, two months of happiness… but we lost so much time that we might have h-had, and… it’s not enough. Claire, it isn’t enough!”

“No,” I said quietly. “A lifetime isn’t enough, for that kind of love.” With a sudden pang, I wondered where Jamie was, and how he was faring.

Mary, more composed now, clutched me by the sleeve. “Claire, can you come with me to see him? I know there’s n-not much you can do…” Her voice faltered, and she steadied it with a visible effort. “But maybe you could… help.” She caught my look at the footman, who stood stolidly outside the wynd, oblivious to the passing traffic. “I pay him,” she said simply. “My aunt thinks I go w-walking every afternoon. Will you come?”

“Yes, of course.” I glanced between the towering buildings, judging the level of the sun over the hills outside the city. It would be dark in an hour; I wanted the blankets delivered to the prison before night made the damp stone walls of the Tolbooth still colder. Making a sudden decision, I turned to Fergus, who had been standing patiently next to me, watching Mary with interest. Returned to Edinburgh with the rest of the Lallybroch men, he had escaped imprisonment by virtue of his French citizenship, and had survived hardily by reverting to his customary trade. I had found him faithfully hanging about near the Tolbooth, where he brought bits of food for his imprisoned companions.

“Take this money,” I said, handing him my purse, “and find Murtagh. Tell him to get as many blankets as that will buy, and see they’re taken to the gaolkeeper at the Tolbooth. He’s been bribed already, but keep back a few shillings, just in case.”

“But Madame,” he protested, “I promised milord I would not let you go alone…”

“Milord isn’t here,” I said firmly, “and I am. Go, Fergus.”

He glanced from me to Mary, evidently decided she was less a threat to me than my temper was to him, and departed, shrugging his shoulders and muttering in French about the stubbornness of women.

The little room at the top of the building had changed considerably since my last visit. It was clean, for one thing, with polish gleaming on every horizontal surface. There was food in the hutch, a down quilt on the bed, and numerous small comforts provided for the patient. Mary had confided on the way that she had been quietly pawning her mother’s jewelry, to ensure that Alex Randall was as comfortable as money could make him.

There were limits to what money could manage, but Alex’s face glowed like a candle flame when Mary came through the door, temporarily obscuring the ravages of illness.

“I’ve brought Claire, dearest.” Mary dropped her cloak unheeded onto a chair and knelt beside him, taking his thin, blue-veined hands in her own.

“Mrs. Fraser.” His voice was light and breathless, though he smiled at me. “It’s good to see a friendly face again.”

“Yes, it is.” I smiled at him, noting half-consciously the rapid, fluttering pulse visible in his throat, and the transparency of his skin. The hazel eyes were soft and warm, holding most of the life left in his frail body.

Lacking medicine, there was nothing I could do for him, but I examined him carefully, and saw him tucked up comfortably afterward, his lips slightly blue from the minor exertion of the examination.

I covered the anxiety I felt at his condition, and promised to come next day with some medicine to help him sleep more easily. He hardly noticed my assurances; all his attention was for Mary, sitting anxiously by him, holding his hand. I saw her glance at the window, where light was fading rapidly, and realized her concern; she would have to return to her aunt’s house before nightfall.

“I’ll take my leave, then,” I told Alex, removing myself as tactfully as I could, to leave them a few precious moments alone together.

He glanced from me to Mary, then smiled back at me in gratitude.

“God bless you, Mrs. Fraser,” he said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, and left, hoping that I would.

I was busy over the next few days. The men’s arms had been confiscated, of course, when they were arrested, and I did my best to recover what I could, bullying and threatening, bribing and charming where necessary. I pawned two brooches that Jared had given me as a farewell present, and bought enough food to ensure that the men of Lallybroch ate as well as the army in general – poorly as that might be.

I talked my way into the cells of the prison, and spent some time in treating the prisoners’ ailments, ranging from scurvy and the more generalized malnutrition common in winter, to chafing sores, chilblains, arthritis, and a variety of respiratory ailments.

I made the rounds of those chieftains and lords still in Edinburgh – not many – who might be helpful to Jamie, if his visit to Stirling should fail. I didn’t think it would, but it seemed wise to take precautions.

And among the other activities of my days, I made time to see Alex Randall once a day. I took pains to come in the mornings, so as not to use up his time with Mary. Alex slept little, and that little, ill; consequently, he tended to be tired and drooping in the morning, not wanting to talk, but always smiling in welcome when I arrived. I would give him a light mixture of mint and lavender, with a few drops of poppy syrup stirred in; this would generally allow him a few hours of sleep, so that he could be alert when Mary arrived in the afternoon.

Aside from me and Mary, I had seen no other visitors at the top of the building. I was therefore surprised, coming up the stairs to his room one morning, to hear voices behind the closed door.

I knocked once, briefly, as was our agreed custom, and let myself in. Jonathan Randall was sitting by his brother’s bed, clad in his captain’s uniform of red and fawn. He rose at my entrance and bowed correctly, face cold.

“Madam,” he said.

“Captain,” I said. We then stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, staring at each other, each unwilling to go further.

“Johnny,” said Alex’s hoarse voice from the bed. It had a note of coaxing, as well as one of command, and his brother shrugged irritably when he heard it.

“My brother has summoned me to give you a bit of news,” he said, tightlipped. He wore no wig this morning, and with his dark hair tied back, his resemblance to his brother was startling. Pale and frail as Alex was, he looked like Jonathan’s ghost.

“You and Mr. Fraser have been kind to my Mary,” Alex said, rolling onto his side to look at me. “And to me as well. I… knew of my brother’s bargain with you” – the faintest of pinks rose in his cheeks – “but I know, too, what you and your husband did for Mary… in Paris.” He licked his lips, cracked and dry from the constant heat in the room. “I think you should hear the news Johnny brought from the Castle yesterday.”

Jack Randall eyed me with dislike, but he was good as his word.

“Hawley has succeeded Cope, as I told you earlier that he would,” he said. “Hawley has little gift for leadership, bar a certain blind confidence in the men under his command. Whether that will stand him in better stead than did Cope’s cannon-” He shrugged impatiently.

“Be that as it may, General Hawley has been directed to march north to recover Stirling Castle.”

“Has he?” I said. “Do you know how many troops he has?”

Randall nodded shortly. “He has eight thousand troops at the moment, thirteen hundred of them cavalry. He is also in daily expectation of the arrival of six thousand Hessians.” He frowned, thinking. “I have heard that the chief of clan Campbell is sending a thousand men to join with Hawley’s forces as well, but I cannot say whether that information is reliable; there seems no way of predicting what Scots will do.”

“I see.” This was serious; the Highland army at this point had between six and seven thousand men. Against Hawley, minus his expected reinforcements, they might manage. To wait until his Hessians and Campbells arrived was clearly madness, to say nothing of the fact that the Highlanders’ fighting skills were much better suited to attack than defense. This news had best reach Lord George Murray at once.

Jack Randall’s voice called me back from my ruminations.

“Good day to you, Madam,” he said, formal as ever, and there was no trace of humanity on the hard, handsome features as he bowed to me and took his leave.

“Thank you,” I said to Alex Randall, waiting for Jonathan to descend the long, twisting stair before leaving myself. “I appreciate it very much.”

He nodded. The shadows under his eyes were pronounced; another bad night.

“You’re welcome,” he said simply. “I suppose you’ll be leaving some of the medicine for me? I imagine it may be some time before I see you again.”

I halted, struck by his assumption that I would go myself to Stirling. That was what every fiber of my being urged me to do, but there was the matter of the men in the Tolbooth to be considered.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But yes; I’ll leave the medicine.”

I walked slowly back to my lodgings, my mind still spinning. Obviously, I must get word to Jamie immediately. Murtagh would have to go, I supposed. Jamie would believe me, of course, if I wrote him a note. But could he convince Lord George, the Duke of Perth, or the other army commanders?

I couldn’t tell him where I had come by this knowledge; would the commanders be willing to believe a woman’s unsupported, written word? Even the word of a woman popularly supposed to have supernatural powers? I thought of Maisri suddenly, and shivered. It’s a curse, she had said. Yes, but what choice was there? I have no power but the power not to say what I know. I had that power, too, but dared not risk using it.

To my surprise, the door to my small room was open, and there were clashing, banging noises coming from inside it. I had been storing the recovered arms under my bed, and stacking swords and assorted blades by the hearth once the space under the bed was filled, until there was virtually no floor space left, save the small square of floorboards where Fergus laid his blankets.

I stood on the stair, amazed at the scene visible through the open door above. Murtagh, standing on the bed, was overseeing the handing-out of weaponry to the men who crowded the room to overflowing – the men of Lallybroch.

“Madame!” I turned at the cry, to find Fergus at my elbow, beaming up at me, a square-toothed grin on his sallow face.

“Madame! Is it not wonderful? Milord has received pardon for his men – a messenger came from Stirling this morning, with the order to release them, and we are ordered at once to join milord at Stirling!”

I hugged him, grinning a bit myself. “That is wonderful, Fergus.” A few of the men had noticed me, and were beginning to turn to me, smiling and plucking at each other’s sleeves. An air of exhilaration and excitement filled the small room. Murtagh, perched on the bedstead like the Gnome King on a toadstool, saw me then, and smiled – an expression which rendered him virtually unrecognizable, so much did it transform his face.

“Will Mr. Murtagh take the men to Stirling?” Fergus asked. He had received a whinger, or short sword, as his share of the weaponry, and was practicing drawing and sheathing it as he spoke.

I met Murtagh’s eye and shook my head. After all, I thought, if Jenny Cameron could lead her brother’s men to Glenfinnan, I could take my husband’s troops to Stirling. And just let Lord George and His Highness try to disregard my news, delivered in person.

“No,” I said. “I will.”

43 FALKIRK

I could feel the men close by, all around me in the dark. There was a piper walking next to me; I could hear the creak of the bag under his arm and see the outline of the drones, poking out behind. They moved as he walked, so that he seemed to be carrying a small, feebly struggling animal.

I knew him, a man named Labhriunn MacIan. The pipers of the clans took it in turns to call the dawn at Stirling, walking to and fro in the encampment with the piper’s measured stride, so that the wail of the drones bounced from the flimsy tents, calling all within to the battle of the new day.

Again in the evening a single piper would come out, strolling slow across the yard, and the camp would stop to listen, voices stilling and the glow of the sunset fading from the tents’ canvas. The high, whining notes of the pibroch called down the shadows from the moor, and when the piper was done, the night had come.

Evening or morning, Labhriunn MacIan played with his eyes closed, stepping sure and slow across the yard and back, elbow tight on the bag and his fingers lively on the chanters’ holes. Despite the cold, I sat sometimes to watch in the evenings, letting the sound drive its spikes through my heart. MacIan paced to and fro, ignoring everything around him, making his turns on the ball of his foot, pouring his being out through his chanter.

There are the small Irish pipes, used indoors for making music, and the Great Northern pipes, used outdoors for reveille, and for calling of clans to order, and the spurring of men to battle. It was the Northern pipes that MacIan played, walking to and fro with his eyes shut tight.

Rising from my seat as he finished one evening, I waited while he pressed the last of the air from his bag with a dying wail, and fell in alongside him as he came in through Stirling’s gate with a nod to the guard.

“Good e’en to ye, Mistress,” he said. His voice was soft, and his eyes, now open, softer still with the unbroken spell of his playing still on him.

“Good evening to you, MacIan,” I said. “I wondered, MacIan, why do you play with your eyes tight shut?”

He smiled and scratched his head, but answered readily enough.

“I suppose it is because my grandsire taught me, Mistress, and he was blind. I see him always when I play, pacing the shore with his beard flying in the wind and his blind eyes closed against the sting of the sand, hearing the sound of the pipes come down to him off the rocks of the cliffside and knowing from that where he was in his walk.”

“So you see him, and you play, too, to the cliffs and the sea? From where do you come, MacIan?” I asked. His speech was low and sibilant, even more than that of most Highlanders.

“It is from the Shetlands, Mistress,” he replied, making the last word almost “Zetlands.” “A long way from here.” He smiled again, and bowed to me as we came to the guest quarters, where I would turn. “But then, I am thinking that you have come farther still, Mistress.”

“That’s’true,” I said. “Good night, MacIan.”

Later that week, I wondered whether his skill at playing unseeing would help him, here in the dark. A large body of men moving makes a good bit of noise, no matter how quietly they go, but I thought any echoes they created would be drowned in the howl of the rising wind. The night was moonless, but the sky was light with clouds, and an icy sleet was falling, stinging my cheeks.

The men of the Highland army covered the ground in small groups of ten or twenty, moving in uneven bumps and patches, as though the earth thrust up small hillocks here and there, or as though the groves of larch and alder were walking through the dark. My news had not come unsupported; Ewan Cameron’s spies had reported Hawley’s moves as well, and the Scottish army was now on its way to meet him, somewhere south of Stirling Castle.

Jamie had given up urging me to go back. I had promised to stay out of the way, but if there was a battle to be fought, then the army’s physicians must be at hand afterward. I could tell when his attention shifted to his men, and the prospects ahead, by the sudden cock of his head. On Donas, he sat high enough to be visible as a shadow, even in the dark, and when he threw up an arm, two smaller shadows detached themselves from the moving mass and came up beside his stirrup. There was a moment’s whispered conversation; then he straightened in his saddle and turned to me.

“The scouts say we’ve been seen; English guards have gone flying for Callendar House, to warn General Hawley. We shallna wait longer; I’m taking my men and circling beyond Dougal’s troops to the far side of Falkirk Hill. We’ll come down from behind as the MacKenzies come in from the west. There’s a wee kirk up the hill to your left, maybe a quarter-mile. That’s your place, Sassenach. Ride there now, and stay.” He groped for my arm in the darkness, found it, and squeezed.

“I shall come for ye when I can, or send Murtagh if I can’t. If things should go wrong, go into the kirk and claim sanctuary there. It’s the best I can think of.”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said. My lips were cold, and I hoped my voice didn’t sound as shaky as I felt. I bit back the “Be careful” that would have been my next words, and contented myself with touching him quickly, the cold surface of his cheek hard as metal under my hand, and the brush of a lock of hair, cold and smooth as a deer’s pelt.

I reined to the left, picking my way slowly as the oncoming men flowed around me. The gelding was excited by the stir; he tossed his head, snorting, and fidgeted under me. I pulled him up sharply, as Jamie had taught me, and kept a close rein as the ground sloped suddenly up beneath the horse’s hooves. I glanced back once, but Jamie had disappeared into the night, and I needed all my attention to find the church in the dark.

It was a tiny building, stone with a thatched roof, crouched in a small depression of the hill, like a cowering animal. I felt a strong feeling of kinship with it. The English watchfires were visible from here, glimmering through the sleet, and I could hear shouting in the distance – Scots or English, I couldn’t tell.

Then the pipes began, a thin, eerie scream in the storm. There were discordant shrieks, rising unearthly from several different places on the hill. Having seen it before at close hand, I could imagine the pipers blowing up their bags, chests inflating with quick gasps and blue lips clamped tight on the chanters’ stems, cold-stiff fingers fumbling to guide the blowing into coherence.

I could almost feel the stubborn resistance of the leathern bag, kept warm and flexible under a plaid, but reluctant to be coaxed into fullness, then suddenly springing to life, part of the piper’s body, like a third lung, breathing for him when the wind stole his breath, as though the shouting of the clansmen near him filled it.

The shouting was louder, now, and reached me in waves as the wind turned, carrying eddying blasts of sleet. There was no porch to give shelter, or any trees on the hillside to break the wind. My horse turned and put his head down, facing into the wind, and his mane whipped hard against my face, rough with ice.

The church offered sanctuary from the elements, as well as from the English. I pushed the door open and, tugging on the bridle, led the horse inside after me.

It was dark inside, with the single oiled-skin window no more than a dim patch in the blackness over the altar. It seemed warm, by contrast with the weather outside, but the smell of stale sweat made it suffocating. There were no seats for the horse to knock over; nothing save a small shrine set into one wall, and the altar itself. Oppressed by the strong smell of people, the horse stood still, snorting and blowing, but not fidgeting overmuch. Keeping a wary eye on him, I went back to the door and thrust my head out.

No one could tell what was happening on Falkirk Hill. The sparks of gunfire twinkled randomly in the dark. I could hear, faint and intermittent, the ring of metal and the thump of an occasional explosion. Now and then came the scream of a wounded man, high as a bagpipe’s screech, different from the Gaelic cries of the warriors. And then the wind would turn, and I would hear nothing, or would imagine I heard voices that were nothing but the shrieking wind.

I had not seen the fight at Prestonpans; subconsciously accustomed to the ponderous movements of huge armies bound to tanks and mortars, I had not realized just how quickly things could happen in a small pitched battle of hand-to-hand fighting and small, light arms.

The first warning I had was a shout from near at hand. “Tulacb Ard!” Deafened by wind, I hadn’t heard them as they came up the hill. “Tulacb Ard!” It was the battle cry of clan MacKenzie; some of Dougal’s troops, forced backward in the direction of my sanctuary. I ducked back inside, but kept the door ajar, so that I could peer out.

They were coming up the hill, a small group of men in flight. Highlanders, both from the sound and the sight of them, plaids and beards and hair flying around them, so they looked like black clouds against the grassy slope, scudding uphill before the wind.

I jumped back into the church as the first of them burst through the door. Dark as it was, I couldn’t see his face, but I recognized his voice when he crashed headfirst into my horse.

“Jesus!”

“Willie!” I shouted. “Willie Coulter!”

“Sweet bleeding Jesus! Who’s that!”

I hadn’t time to answer before the door crashed against the wall, and two more black forms shot into the tiny church. Incensed by this noisy intrusion, my horse reared and whinnied, pawing the air. This gave rise to cries of alarm from the intruders, who clearly had thought the building unoccupied, and were disconcerted to find otherwise.

The entrance of several more men only increased the confusion, and I gave up any idea of trying to subdue the horse. Forced to the rear of the church, I squeezed myself into the small space between altar and wall and waited for things to sort themselves out.

They began to show signs of doing so when one of the confused voices in the darkness rose above the others.

“Be QUIET!” it shouted, in a tone that brooked no opposition. Everyone but the horse obeyed, and as the racket died down, even the horse subsided, backing into a corner and making snorting noises, mixed with querulous squeals of disgust.

“It is MacKenzie of Leoch,” said the imperious voice. “Who else bides here?”

“It is Geordie, Dougal, and my brother with me,” said a voice nearby, in tones of profound relief. “We’ve brought Rupert with us, too; he’s wounded. Christ, I thought it was the de’il himself in here!”

“Gordon McLeod of Ardsmuir,” said another voice I didn’t recognize.

“And Ewan Cameron of Kinnoch,” said another. “Whose is the horse?”

“Mine,” I said, sidling cautiously out from behind the altar. The sound of my voice caused another outbreak, but Dougal put a stop to it once more, raising his own voice above the racket.

“QUIET, damn the lot of ye! Is that you, Claire Fraser?”

“Well, it isn’t the Queen,” I said testily. “Willie Coulter’s in here, too, or he was a minute ago. Hasn’t anyone got a flint box?”

“No light!” said Dougal. “Little chance that the English will overlook this place if they follow us, but little sense in drawing their attention to it if they don’t.”

“All right,” I said, biting my lip. “Rupert, can you talk? Say something so I can tell where you are.” I didn’t know how much I could do for him in the dark; as it was, I couldn’t even reach my medicine box. Still, I couldn’t leave him to bleed to death on the floor.

There was a nasty-sounding cough from the side of the church opposite me, and a hoarse voice said, “Here, lass,” and coughed again.

I felt my way across the floor, cursing under my breath. I could tell merely from the bubbling sound of that cough that it was bad; the sort of bad that my medicine box wasn’t likely to help. I crouched and duck-walked the last few feet, waving my arms in a wide swathe to feel what might be in my way.

One hand struck a warm body, and a big hand fastened on to me. It had to be Rupert; I could hear him breathing, a stertorous sound with a faint gurgle behind it.

“I’m here,” I said, patting him blindly in what I hoped was a reassuring spot. I supposed it was, because he gave a sort of gasping chuckle and arched his hips, pressing my hand down hard against him.

“Do that again, lass, and I’ll forget all about the musket ball,” he said. I grabbed my hand back.

“Perhaps a bit later,” I said dryly. I moved my hand upward, skimming over his body in search of his head. The thick bristle of beard told me I’d reached my goal, and I felt carefully under the dense growth for the pulse in his throat. Fast and light, but still fairly regular. His forehead was slick with sweat, though his skin felt clammy to the touch. The tip of his nose was cold when I brushed it, chilled from the air outside.

“Pity I’m no a dog,” he said, a thread of laughter coming between the gasps for air. “Cold nose… would be a good sign.”

“Be a better sign if you’d quit talking,” I said. “Where did the ball take you? No, don’t tell me, take my hand and put it on the wound… and if you put it anywhere else, Rupert MacKenzie, you can die here like a dog, and good riddance to you.”

I could feel the wide chest vibrate with suppressed laughter under my hand. He drew my hand slowly under his plaid, and I pushed back the obstructing fabric with my other hand.

“All right, I’ve got it,” I whispered. I could feel the small tear in his shirt, damp with blood around the edges, and I put both hands to it and ripped it open. I brushed my fingers very lightly down his side, feeling the ripple of gooseflesh under them, and then the small hole of the entrance wound. It seemed a remarkably small hole, compared to the bulk of Rupert, who was a burly man.

“Did it come out anywhere?” I whispered. The inside of the church was quiet, except for the horse, who was moving restlessly in his own corner. With the door closed, the sounds of battle outside were still audible, but diffuse; it was impossible to tell how close they were.

“No,” he said, and coughed again. I could feel his hand move toward his mouth, and I followed it with a fold of his plaid. My eyes were as accustomed to the darkness as they were likely to get, but he was still no more than a hunched black shape on the floor before me. For some things, though, touch was enough. There was little bleeding at the site of the wound, but the cloth I held to his mouth flooded my hand with sudden damp warmth.

The ball had taken him through one lung at least, possibly both, and his chest was filling with blood. He could last a few hours in this condition, perhaps a day if one lung remained functional. If the pericardium had been nicked, he would go faster. But only surgery would save him, and that of a kind I couldn’t do.

I could feel a warm presence behind me, and heard normal breathing as someone groped toward me. I reached back and felt my hand gripped tight. Dougal MacKenzie.

He made his way up beside me, and laid a hand on Rupert’s supine body.

“How is it, man?” he asked softly. “Can ye walk?” My other hand still on Rupert, I could feel his head shake in answer to Dougal’s question. The men in the church behind us had begun to talk among themselves in whispers.

Dougal’s hand pressed down on my shoulder.

“What d’ye need to help him? Your wee box? Is it on the horse?” He had risen before I could tell him that there was nothing in the box to help Rupert.

A sudden loud crack from the altar stopped the whispers, and there was a quick movement all around, as men snatched up the weapons they had laid down. Another crack, and a ripping noise, and the oiled-skin covering of the window gave way to a rush of cold, clean air and a few swirling snowflakes.

“Sassenach! Claire! Are ye there?” The low voice from the window brought me to my feet in momentary forgetfulness of Rupert.

“Jamie!” All around me was a collective exhalation, and the clank of falling swords and targes. The new faint light from outdoors was blotted out for a moment by the bulk of Jamie’s head and shoulders. He dropped down lightly from the altar, silhouetted against the open window.

“Who’s here?” he said softly, looking around. “Dougal, is that you?”

“Aye, it’s me, lad. Your wife and a few more. Did ye see the sassenach bastards anywhere near outside?”

Jamie uttered a short laugh.

“Why d’ye think I came in through the window? There’s maybe twenty of them at the foot of the hill.”

Dougal made a displeased noise deep in his throat. “The bastards that cut us off from the main troop, I’ll be bound.”

“Just so. Ho, mo cridh! Ciamar a tha thu?” Recognizing a familiar voice in the midst of madness, my horse had thrust its nose up with a loud whinny of greeting.

“Hush, ye wee fool!” Dougal said to it violently. “D’ye want the English to hear?”

“I dinna suppose the English would hang him,” Jamie observed mildly. “As for them telling you’re here, they won’t need ears, if they’ve eyes in their heads; the slope’s half mud outside, and the prints of all your feet show clear.”

“Mmphm.” Dougal cast an eye toward the window, but Jamie was already shaking his head.

“No good, Dougal. The main body’s to the south, and Lord George Murray’s gone to meet them, but there’s the few English from the party we met still left on this side. A group of them chased me over the hill; I dodged to the side and crawled up to the church on my belly through the grass, but I’ll guess they’re still combing the hillside above.” He reached out a hand in my direction, and I took it. It was cold and damp from crawling through grass, but I was glad just to touch him, to have him there.

“Crawled in, eh? And how were ye planning to get out again?” Dougal asked.

I could feel Jamie shrug. He tilted his head in the direction of my horse. “I’d thought I might burst out and ride them down; they’ll not know about the horse. That would cause enough kerfuffle maybe for Claire to slip free.”

Dougal snorted. “Aye, and they’d pick ye off your horse like a ripe apple.”

“It hardly matters,” Jamie said dryly. “I canna see the lot of ye to be slipping out quietly with no one noticing, no matter how much fuss I made over it.”

As though in confirmation of this, Rupert gave a loud groan by the wall. Dougal and I dropped onto our knees beside him at once, followed more slowly by Jamie.

He wasn’t dead, but wasn’t doing well, either. His hands were chilly, and his breathing had a wheezing, whining note to it.

“Dougal,” he whispered.

“I’m here, Rupert. Be still, man, you’ll be all right soon.” The MacKenzie chieftain quickly pulled off his own plaid and folded it into a pillow, which he thrust beneath Rupert’s head and shoulders. Raised a bit, his breathing seemed easier, but a touch below his beard showed me wet blotches on his shirt. He still had some strength; he reached out a hand and grasped Dougal’s arm.

“If… they’ll find us anyway… give me a light,” he said, gasping. “I’d see your face once more, Dougal.”

Close as I was to Dougal, I felt the shock run through him at these words and their implication. His head turned sharply toward me, but of course he couldn’t see my face. He muttered an order over his shoulder, and after a bit of shuffling and murmuring, someone cut loose a handful of the thatch, which was twisted into a torch and lit with a spark from a flint. It burned fast, but gave enough light for me to examine Rupert while the men worked at chiseling loose a long splinter of wood from the poles of the roof, to serve as a less temporary torch.

He was white as a fish belly, hair matted with sweat, and a faint smear of blood still showed on the flesh of his full lower lip. Dark spots showed on the glossy black beard, but he smiled faintly at me as I bent over him to check his pulse again. Lighter, and very fast, missing beats now and then. I smoothed the hair back from his face, and he touched my hand in thanks.

I felt Dougal’s hand on my elbow, and sat back on my heels, turning to face him. I had faced him once like this before, over the body of a man mortally wounded by a boar. He had asked me then, “Can he live?” and I saw the memory of that day cross his face. The same question stood in his eyes again, but this time in eyes glazed with fear of my answer. Rupert was his closest friend, the kinsman who rode and who fought on his right-hand side, as Ian did for Jamie.

This time I didn’t answer; Rupert did it for me.

“Dougal,” he said, and smiled as his friend bent anxiously over him. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed as deeply as he could, gathering strength for the moment.

“Dougal,” he said again, opening his eyes. “Ye’ll no grieve for me, man.”

Dougal’s face twitched in the torchlight. I could see the denial of death come to his lips, but he bit it back and forced it aside.

“I’m your chief, man,” he said, with a quivering half-smile. “Ye’ll not order me; I shall grieve ye and I like.” He clasped Rupert’s hand, where it lay across his chest, and held it tightly.

There was a faint, wheezing chuckle from Rupert, and another coughing spell.

“Weel, grieve for me and ye will, Dougal,” he said, when he’d finished. “And I’m glad for it. But ye canna grieve ’til I be deid, can ye? I would die by your hand, mo caraidh, not in the hands of the strangers.”

Dougal jerked, and Jamie and I exchanged appalled glances behind his back.

“Rupert…” Dougal began helplessly, but Rupert interrupted him, clasping his hand and shaking it gently.

“You are my chief, man, and it’s your duty,” he whispered. “Come now. Do it now. This dying hurts me, Dougal, and I would have it over.” His eyes moved restlessly, lighting on me.

“Will ye hold my hand while I go, lass?” he asked. “I’d like it so.”

There seemed nothing else to do. Moving slowly, feeling that this was all a dream, I took the broad, black-haired hand in both of mine, pressing it as though I might force my own warmth into the cooling flesh.

With a grunt, Rupert heaved himself slightly to one side and glanced up at Jamie, who sat by his head.

“She should ha’ married me, lad, when she had the choice,” he wheezed. “You’re a poor weed, but do your best.” One eye squeezed shut in a massive wink. “Gi’e her a good one for me, lad.”

The black eyes swiveled back to me, and a final grin spread across his face.

“Goodbye, bonnie lassie,” he said softly.

Dougal’s dirk took him under the breastbone, hard and straight. The burly body convulsed, turning to the side with an coughing explosion of air and blood, but the brief sound of agony came from Dougal.

The MacKenzie chieftain stayed frozen for a moment, eyes shut, hands clenched on the hilt of the dirk. Then Jamie rose, took him by the shoulders, and turned him away, murmuring something in Gaelic. Jamie glanced at me, and I nodded and held out my arms. He turned Dougal gently toward me, and I gathered him to me as we both crouched on the floor, holding him while he wept.

Jamie’s own face was streaked with tears, and I could hear the brief sighs and sobbing breaths of the other men. I supposed it was better they wept for Rupert than for themselves. If the English did come for us here, all of us stood to be hanged for treason. It was easier to mourn for Rupert, who was safely gone, sped on his way by the hand of a friend.

They did not come anytime in the long winter night. We huddled together against one wall, under plaids and cloaks, waiting. I dozed fitfully, leaning against Jamie’s shoulder, with Dougal hunched and silent on my other side. I thought that neither of them slept, but kept watch through the night over Rupert’s corpse, quiet under his own draped plaid across the church, on the other side of the abyss that separates the dead from the living.

We spoke little, but I knew what they were thinking. They were wondering, as I was, whether the English troops had left, regrouping with the main army at Callendar House below, or whether they still watched outside, waiting for the dawn before making a move, lest anyone in the tiny church escape under cover of darkness.

The matter was settled with the coming of first light.

“Ho, the church! Come out and give yourselves up!” The call came from the slope below, in a strong English voice.

There was a stir among the men in the church, and the horse, who had been dozing in his corner, snapped his head up with a startled snort at the movement nearby. Jamie and Dougal exchanged a glance, then, as though they had planned it together, rose and stood, shoulder to shoulder, before the closed door. A jerk of Jamie’s head sent me to the rear of the church, back to my shelter behind the altar.

Another shout from the outside was met with silence. Jamie drew the snaphance pistol from his belt and checked the loading of it, casually, as though there were all the time in the world. He sank to one knee and braced the pistol, pointing it at the door at the level of a man’s head.

Geordie and Willie guarded the window to the rear, swords and pistols to the ready. But it was likely from the front that an attack would come; the hill behind the church sloped steeply up, with barely room between the slope and the wall of the church for one man to squeeze past.

I heard the squelching of footsteps, approaching the door through the mud, and the faint clanking of sidearms. The sounds stopped at a distance, and a voice came again, closer and louder.

“In the name of His Majesty King George, come out and surrender! We know you are there!”

Jamie fired. The report inside the tiny church was deafening. It must have been sufficiently impressive from outside as well; I could hear the hasty sounds of slipping retreat, accompanied by muffled curses. There was a small hole in the door, made by the pistol ball; Dougal sidled up to it and peered out.

“Damn,” he said under his breath. “There’s a lot of them.”

Jamie cast a glance at me, then set his lips and turned his attention to reloading his pistol. Clearly, the Scots had no intention of surrendering. Just as clearly, the English had no desire to storm the church, given the easily defended entrances. They couldn’t mean to starve us out? Surely the Highland army would be sending out men to search for the wounded of the battle from the night before. If they arrived before the English had opportunity to bring a cannon to bear on the church, we might be saved.

Unfortunately, there was a thinker outside. The sound of footsteps came once more, and then a measured English voice, full of authority.

“You have one minute to come out and give yourselves up,” it said, “or we fire the thatch.”

I glanced upward in complete horror. The walls of the church were stone, but the thatch would burn in short order, even soaked with rain and sleet, and once well caught, would send flames and smoking embers raining down to engulf us. I remembered the awful speed with which the torch of twisted reed had burned the night before; the charred remnant lay on the floor near Rupert’s shrouded corpse, a grisly token in the gray dawn light.

“No!” I screamed. “Bloody bastards! This is a church! Have you never heard of sanctuary?”

“Who is that?” came the sharp voice from outside. “Is that an English-woman in there?!”

“Yes!” shouted Dougal, springing to the door. He cracked it ajar and bellowed out at the English soldiers on the hillside below. “Yes! We hold an English lady captive! Fire the thatch, and she dies with us!”

There was an outbreak of voices at the bottom of the hill, and a sudden shifting among the men in the church. Jamie whirled on Dougal with a scowl, saying, “What…!”

“It’s the only chance!” Dougal hissed back. “Let them take her, in return for our freedom. They’ll not harm her if they think she’s our hostage, and we’ll get her back later, once we’re free!”

I came out of my hiding space and went to Jamie, gripping his sleeve.

“Do it!” I said urgently. “Dougal is right, it’s the only chance!”

He looked down at me helplessly, rage and fear mingled on his face. And under it all, a trace of humor at the underlying irony of the situation.

“I am a sassenach, after all,” I said, seeing it.

He touched my face briefly with a rueful smile.

“Aye, mo duinne. But you’re my sassenach.” He turned to Dougal, squaring his shoulders. He drew in a deep breath, and nodded.

“All right. Tell them we took her” – he thought quickly, rubbing one hand through his hair – “from Falkirk road, late yesterday.”

Dougal nodded, and without waiting for more, slipped out of the church door, a white handkerchief held high overhead in signal of truce.

Jamie turned to me, frowning, glancing at the church door, where the sounds of English voices were still audible, though we couldn’t make out words as they talked.

“I don’t know what you’re to tell them, Claire; perhaps ye’d better pretend to be so shocked that ye canna speak of it. It’s maybe better than telling a tale; for if they should realize who you are-” He stopped suddenly and rubbed his hand hard over his face.

If they realized who I was, it would be London, and the Tower – followed quite possibly by swift execution. But while the broadsheets had made much of “the Stuart Witch,” no one, so far as I knew, had realized or published the fact that the witch was English.

“Don’t worry,” I said, realizing just what a silly remark this was, but unable to come up with anything better. I laid a hand on his sleeve, feeling the swift pulse that beat in his wrist. “You’ll get me back before they have a chance to realize anything. Do you think they’ll take me to Callendar House?”

He nodded, back in control. “Aye, I think so. If ye can, try to be alone near a window, just after nightfall. I’ll come for ye then.”

There was time for no more. Dougal slipped back through the door, closing it carefully behind him.

“Done,” he said, looking from me to Jamie. “We give them the woman, and we’ll be allowed to leave unmolested. No pursuit. We keep the horse. We’ll need it, for Rupert, ye see,” he said to me, half-apologetically.

“It’s all right,” I told him. I looked at the door, with its small dark spot where the bullet had passed, the same size as the hole in Rupert’s side. My mouth was dry and I swallowed hard. I was a cuckoo’s egg, about to be laid in the wrong nest. The three of us hesitated before the door, all reluctant to take the final step.

“I’d b-better go,” I said, trying hard to control my shaking voice and limbs. “They’ll wonder what’s keeping us.”

Jamie closed his eyes for a moment, nodded, then stepped toward me.

“I think you’d better swoon, Sassenach,” he said. “It will be easier that way, maybe.” He stooped, picked me up in his arms, and carried me through the door that Dougal held open.

His heart pounded beneath my ear, and I could feel the trembling in his arms as he carried me. After the stuffiness of the church, with its smells of sweat, blood, black powder and horse manure, the cold fresh air of early morning took my breath away, and I huddled against him, shivering. His hands tightened under my knees and shoulders, hard as a promise; he would never let me go.

“God,” he said once, under his breath, and then we had reached them. Sharp questions, mumbled answers, the reluctant loosening of his grip as he laid me on the ground, and then the swish of his feet, going away through wet grass. I was alone, in the hands of the strangers.

44 IN WHICH QUITE A LOT OF THINGS GANG AGLEY

I hunched closer to the fire, holding out my hands to thaw. They were grimy from holding the reins all day, and I wondered briefly whether it was worthwhile walking the distance to the stream to wash them. Maintaining modern standards of hygiene in the absence of all forms of plumbing sometimes seemed a good deal more trouble than it was worth. No bloody wonder if people got ill and died frequently, I thought sourly. They died of simple filth and ignorance more than anything.

The thought of dying in filth was sufficient to get me to my feet, tired as I was. The tiny streamlet that passed by the campsite was boggy near the edges, and my shoes sank deep into the marshy growth. Having traded dirty hands for wet feet, I slogged back to the fire, to find Corporal Rowbotham waiting for me with a bowl of what he said was stew.

“The Captain’s compliments, Mum,” he said, actually tugging his forelock as he handed me the bowl, “and he says to tell yer as we’ll be in Tavistock tomorrow. There’s an inn there.” He hesitated, his round, homely, middle-aged face concerned, then added, “The Captain’s apologies for the lack of accommodation, Mum, but we’ve fixed a tent for yer for tonight. ’S not much, but mebbe’ll keep the rain off yer.”

“Thank the Captain for me, Corporal,” I said, as graciously as I could manage. “And thank you, too,” I added, with more warmth. I was entirely aware that Captain Mainwaring considered me a burdensome nuisance, and would have taken no thought at all for my night’s shelter. The tent – a spare length of canvas draped carefully over a tree limb and pegged at both sides – was undoubtedly the sole idea of Corporal Rowbotham.

The Corporal went away and I sat by myself, slowly eating scorched potatoes and stringy beef. I’d found a late patch of charlock near the stream, leaves wilting and brown around the edges, and had brought back a handful in my pocket, along with a few juniper berries picked during a stop earlier in the day. The mustard leaves were old and very bitter, but I managed to get them down by wodging them between bites of potato. I finished the meal with the juniper berries, biting each one briefly to avoid choking and then swallowing the tough, flattened berry, seed and all. The oily burst of flavor sent fumes up the back of my throat that made my eyes water, but they did cleanse my tongue of the taste of grease and scorch, and would, with the charlock leaves, maybe be sufficient to ward off scurvy.

I had had a large store of dried fiddleheads, rose hips, dried apples and dill seeds in the larger of my two medicine chests, carefully collected as a defense against nutritional deficiency during the long winter months. I hoped Jamie was eating them.

I put my head down on my knees; I didn’t think anyone was looking at me, but I didn’t want my face to show when I thought of Jamie.

I had stayed in my pretended swoon on Falkirk Hill as long as I could, but was roused before too long by a British dragoon trying to force brandy from a pocket flask down my throat. Unsure quite what to do with me, my “rescuers” had taken me to Callendar House and turned me over to General Hawley’s staff.

So far, all had gone according to plan. Within the hour, though, things had gone rather seriously awry. From sitting in an anteroom and listening to everything that was said around me, I soon learned that what I had thought was a major battle during the night had in fact been no more than a small skirmish between the MacKenzies and a detachment of English troops on their way to join the main body of the army. Said army was even now assembling itself to meet the expected Highland charge on Falkirk Hill; the battle I thought I had lived through had not, in fact, happened yet!

General Hawley himself was overseeing this process, and as no one seemed to have any idea what ought to be done with me, I was consigned to the custody of a young private, along with a letter describing the circumstances of my rescue, and dispatched to a Colonel Campbell’s temporary headquarters at Kerse. The young private, a stocky specimen named Dobbs, was distressingly zealous in his urge to perform his duty, and despite several tries along the way, I had been unable to get away from him.

We had arrived in Kerse, only to find that Colonel Campbell was not there, but had been summoned to Livingston.

“Look,” I had suggested to my escorting gaoler, “plainly Colonel Campbell is not going to have time or inclination to talk to me, and there’s nothing I could tell him in any case. Why don’t I just find lodging in the town here, until I can make some arrangement for continuing my journey to Edinburgh?” For lacking any better idea, I had given the English basically the same story I had given to Colum MacKenzie, two years earlier; that I was a widowed lady from Oxford, traveling to visit a relative in Scotland, when I had been set upon and abducted by Highland brigands.

Private Dobbs shook his head, flushing stubbornly. He couldn’t be more than twenty, and he wasn’t very bright, but once he got an idea in his head, he hung on to it.

“I can’t let you do that, Mrs. Beauchamp,” he said – for I had used my own maiden name as an alias – “Captain Bledsoe’ll have my liver for it, an’ I don’t bring you safe to the Colonel.”

So to Livingston we had gone, mounted on two of the sorriest-looking nags I had ever seen. I was finally relieved of the attentions of my escort, but with no improvement in my circumstances. Instead, I found myself immured in an upper room in a house in Livingston, telling the story once again, to one Colonel Gordon MacLeish Campbell, a Lowland Scot in command of one of the Elector’s regiments.

“Aye, I see,” he said, in the sort of tone that suggested that he didn’t see at all. He was a small, foxy-faced man, with balding reddish hair brushed back from his temples. He narrowed his eyes still further, glancing down at the crumpled letter on his blotter.

“This says,” he said, placing a pair of half-spectacles on his nose in order to peer more closely at the sheet of paper, “that one of your captors, Mistress, was a Fraser clansman, very large, and with red hair. Is this information correct?”

“Yes,” I said, wondering what he was getting at.

He tilted his head so the spectacles slid down his nose, the better to fix me with a piercing stare over the tops.

“The men who rescued you near Falkirk gave it as their impression that one of your captors was none other than the notorious Highland chief known as ‘Red Jamie.’ Now, I am aware, Mrs. Beauchamp, that you were… distressed, shall we say?” – his lips pulled back from the word, but it wasn’t a smile – “during the period of your captivity, and perhaps in no fit frame of mind to make close observations, but did you notice at any time whether the other men present referred to this man by name?”

“They did. They called him Jamie.” I couldn’t imagine any harm that could be done by telling him this; the broadsheets I had seen made it abundantly clear that Jamie was a supporter of the Stuart cause. The placing of Jamie at the battle of Falkirk was possibly of interest to the English, but could hardly incriminate him further.

“They canna very well hang me more than once,” he’d said. Once would be more than enough. I glanced at the window. Night had fallen half an hour ago, and lanterns glowed in the street below, carried by soldiers passing to and fro. Jamie would be at Callendar House, searching for the window where I should be waiting.

I had the absurd certainty, all of a sudden, that he had followed me, had known somehow where I was going, and would be waiting in the street below, for me to show myself.

I rose abruptly and went to the window. The street below was empty, save for a seller of pickled herrings, seated on a stool with his lantern at his feet, waiting for the possibility of customers. It wasn’t Jamie, of course. There was no way for him to find me. No one in the Stuart camp knew where I was; I was entirely alone. I pressed my hands hard against the glass in sudden panic, not caring that I might shatter it.

“Mistress Beauchamp! Are ye well?” The Colonel’s voice behind me was sharp with alarm.

I clamped my lips tight together to stop them shaking and took several deep breaths, clouding the glass so the street below vanished in mist. Outwardly calm, I turned back to face the Colonel.

“I’m quite well,” I said. “If you’ve finished asking questions, I’d like to go now.”

“Would ye? Mmm.” He looked me over with something like doubt, then shook his head decidedly.

“Ye’ll stay the night here,” he declared. “In the morning, I shall be sendin’ ye southward.”

I felt a spasm of shock clench my insides. “South! What the hell for?” I blurted.

His fox-fur eyebrows rose in astonishment and his mouth fell open. Then he shook himself slightly, and clamped it shut, opening it only a slit to deliver himself of his next words.

“I have orders to send on any information pertaining to the Highland criminal known as Red Jamie Fraser,” he said. “Or any person associated with him.”

“I’m not associated with him!” I said. Unless you wanted to count marriage, of course.

Colonel Campbell was oblivious. He turned to his desk and shuffled through a stack of dispatches.

“Aye, here it is. Captain Mainwaring will be the officer who escorts you. He will come to fetch ye here at dawn.” He rang a small silver bell shaped like a goblin, and the door opened to reveal the inquiring face of his private orderly. “Garvie, ye’ll see the lady to her quarters. Lock the door.” He turned to me and bowed perfunctorily. “I think we shall not meet again, Mrs. Beauchamp; I wish ye good rest and God-speed.” And that was that.

I didn’t know quite how fast God-speed was, but it was likely faster than Captain Mainwaring’s detachment had ridden. The Captain was in charge of a supply train of wagons, bound for Lanark. After delivery of these and their drivers, he was then to proceed south with the rest of his detachment, delivering nonvital dispatches as he went. I was apparently in the category of nonurgent intelligence, for we had been more than a week on the road, and no sign of reaching whatever place I was bound for.

“South.” Did that mean London? I wondered, for the thousandth time. Captain Mainwaring had not told me my final destination, but I could think of no other possibility.

Lifting my head, I caught one of the dragoons across the fire staring at me. I stared flatly back at him, until he flushed and dropped his eyes to the bowl in his hands. I was accustomed to such looks, though most were less bold about it.

It had started from the beginning, with a certain reserved embarrassment on the part of the young idiot who had taken me to Livingston. It had taken some little time for me to realize that what caused the attitude of distant reserve on the part of the English officers was not suspicion, but a mixture of contempt and horror, mingled with a trace of pity and a sense of official responsibility that kept their true feelings from showing openly.

I had not merely been rescued from a band of the rapacious, marauding Scots. I had been delivered from a captivity during which I had spent an entire night in a single room with a number of men who were, to the certain knowledge of all right-thinking Englishmen, “Little more than Savage Beasts, guilty of Rapine, Robbery, and countless other such Hideous Crimes.” Not thinkable, therefore, that a young Englishwoman had passed a night in the company of such beasts and emerged unscathed.

I reflected grimly that Jamie’s carrying me out in an apparent swoon might have eased matters originally, but had undoubtedly contributed to the overall impression that he – and the other assorted Scots – had been having their forcible way with me. And thanks to the detailed letter written by the captain of my original band of rescuers, everyone to whom I had later been passed on – and everyone to whom they talked, I imagined – knew about it. Schooled in Paris, I understood the mechanics of gossip very well.

Corporal Rowbotham had certainly heard the stories, but continued to treat me kindly, with none of the smirking speculation I occasionally surprised on the faces of the other soldiers. If I had been inclined to offer up bedtime prayers, I would have included his name therein.

I rose, dusted off my cloak, and went to my tent. Seeing me go, Corporal Rowbotham also rose, and circling the fire discreetly, sat down by his comrades again, his back in direct line with the entrance to my tent. When the soldiers retired to their beds, I knew he would seek a spot at a respectful distance, but still within call of my resting place. He had done this for the past three nights, whether we slept in inn or field.

Three nights earlier I had tried yet another escape. Captain Mainwaring was well aware that I traveled with him under compulsion, and while he didn’t like being burdened with me, he was too conscientious a soldier to shirk the responsibility. I had two guards, who watched me closely, riding on each side by day.

At night, the guard was relaxed, the Captain evidently thinking it unlikely that I would strike out on foot over deserted moors in the dead of winter. The Captain was correct. I had no interest in committing suicide.

On the night in question, however, we had passed through a small village about two hours before we stopped for the night. Even on foot, I was sure I could backtrack and reach the village before dawn. The village boasted a small distillery, from which wagons bearing loads of barrels departed for several towns in the surrounding region. I had seen the distiller’s yard, piled high with barrels, and thought I had a decent chance of hiding there, and leaving with the first wagon.

So after the camp was quiet, and the soldiers lumped and snoring in their blankets round the fire, I had crept out of my own blanket, carefully laid near the edge of a willow grove, and made my way through the trailing fronds, with no more sound than the rustle of the wind.

Leaving the grove, I had thought it was the rustle of the wind behind me, too, until a hand clamped down on my shoulder.

“Don’t scream. Y’ don’t want the Capting to know yer out wi’out leave.” I didn’t scream, only because all the breath had been startled out of me. The soldier, a tallish man called “Jessie” by his mates, because of the trouble he took in combing out his yellow curls, smiled at me, and I smiled a little uncertainly back at him.

His eyes dropped to my bosom. He sighed, raised his eyes to mine, and took a step toward me. I took three steps back, fast.

“It doesn’t matter, really, does it, sweet’art?” he said, still smiling lazily. “Not after what’s ’appened already. What’s once more, eh? And I’m an Englishman, too,” he coaxed. “Not a filthy Scot.”

“Leave the poor woman alone, Jess,” Corporal Rowbotham said, emerging silently from the screen of willows behind him. “She’s had enough trouble, poor lady.” He spoke softly enough, but Jessie glared at him, then, thinking better of whatever he’d had in mind, turned without another word and disappeared under the willow leaves.

The Corporal had waited, unspeaking, for me to gather up my fallen cloak, and then had followed me back to the camp. He had gone to pick up his own blanket, motioned to me to lie down, and placed himself six feet away, sitting up with his blanket about his shoulders Indian-style. Whenever I woke during the night, I had seen him still sitting there, staring shortsightedly into the fire.

Tavistock did have an inn. I didn’t have much time to enjoy its amenities, though. We arrived in the village at midday, and Captain Mainwaring set off at once to deliver his current crop of dispatches. He returned within the hour, though, and told me to fetch my cloak.

“Why?” I said, bewildered. “Where are we going?”

He glanced at me indifferently and said “To Bellhurst Manor.”

“Right,” I said. It sounded a trifle more impressive than my current surroundings, which featured several soldiers playing at chuck-a-luck on the floor, a flea-ridden mongrel asleep by the fire, and a strong smell of hops.

The manor house, without regard to the natural beauty of its site, stubbornly turned its back on the open meadows and huddled inland instead, facing the stark cliffside.

The drive was straight, short, and unadorned, unlike the lovely curving approaches to French manors. But the entrance was equipped with two utilitarian stone pillars, each bearing the heraldic device of the owner. I stared at it as my horse clopped past, trying to place it. A cat – perhaps a leopard? – couchant, with a lily in its paw. It was familiar, I knew. But whose?

There was a stir in the long grass near the gate, and I caught a quick glimpse of pale blue eyes as a hunched bundle of rags scuttled into the shadows, away from the churn of the horses’ hooves. Something about the ragged beggar seemed faintly familiar, too. Perhaps I was merely hallucinating; grasping at anything that didn’t remind me of English soldiers.

The escort waited in the dooryard, not bothering to dismount, while I mounted the steps with Captain Mainwaring, and waited while he hammered at the door, rather wondering what might be on the other side of it.

“Mrs. Beauchamp?” The butler, if that’s what he was, looked rather as though he suspected the worst. No doubt he was right.

“Yes,” I said. “Er, whose house is this?”

But even as I asked, I raised my eyes and looked into the gloom of the inner hall. A face stared back at me, doe-eyes wide and startled.

Mary Hawkins.

As the girl opened her mouth, I opened mine as well. And screamed as loudly as I could. The butler, taken unprepared, took a step back, tripped on a settee, and fell over sideways like a bowls pin. I could hear the startled noises of the soldiers outside, coming up the steps.

I picked up my skirts, shrieked “A mouse! A mouse!” and fled toward the parlor, yelling like a banshee.

Infected by my apparent hysteria, Mary shrieked as well, and clutched me about the middle as I cannoned into her. I bore her back into the recesses of the parlor with me, and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Don’t tell anyone who I am,” I breathed into her ear. “No one! My life depends on it!” I had thought I was being melodramatic, but it occurred to me, as I spoke the words, that I could very well be telling the exact truth. Being married to Red Jamie Fraser was likely a dicey proposition.

Mary had time only to nod in a dazed sort of way, when the door at the far side of the room opened, and a man came in.

“Whatever is all this wretched noise, Mary?” he demanded. A plump, contented-looking man, he had also the firm chin and tightly satisfied lips of the man who is contented because he generally gets his own way.

“N-nothing, Papa,” said Mary, stuttering in her nervousness. “Only a m-m-mouse.”

The baronet squeezed his eyes shut and inhaled deeply, seeking patience. Having found a simulacrum of that state, he opened them and gazed at his offspring.

“Say it again, child,” he ordered. “But straight. I’ll not have you mumbling and blithering. Take a deep breath, steady yourself. Now. Again.”

Mary obeyed, inhaling ’til the laces of her bodice strained across the budding chest. Her fingers wound themselves in the silk brocade of her skirt, seeking support.

“It w-was a mouse, Papa. Mrs. Fr… er, this lady was frightened by a mouse.”

Dismissing this attempt as barely satisfactory, the baronet stepped forward, examining me with interest.

“Oh? And who might you be, Madam?”

Captain Mainwaring, arriving belatedly after the search for the mythical mouse, popped up at my elbow and introduced me, handing over the note of introduction from Colonel MacLeish.

“Hum. So, it seems His Grace is to be your host, Madam, at least temporarily.” He handed the note to the waiting butler, and took the hat the latter had taken from the nearby rack.

“I regret that our acquaintance should be so short, Mrs. Beauchamp. I was just leaving myself.” He glanced over his shoulder, to a short stairway that branched off the hall. The butler, dignity restored, was already mounting it, grubby note reposing on a salver held before him. “I see Walmisley has gone to tell His Grace of your arrival. I must go, or I shall miss the post-coach. Adieu, Mrs. Beauchamp.”

He turned to Mary, hanging back against the paneled wainscoting. “Goodbye, daughter. Do try to… well.” The corners of his mouth turned up in what was meant to be a fatherly smile. “Goodbye, Mary.”

“Goodbye, Papa,” she murmured, eyes on the ground. I glanced from one to the other. What on earth was Mary Hawkins, of all people, doing here? Plainly she was staying at the house; I supposed the owner must be some connection of her family’s.

“Mrs. Beauchamp?” A small, tubby footman was bowing at my elbow. “His Grace will see you now, Madam.”

Mary’s hands clutched at my sleeve as I turned to follow the footman. “B-b-b-but…” she began. In my keyed-up state, I didn’t think I could manage sufficient patience to hear her out. I smiled vaguely and patted her hand.

“Yes, yes,” I said. “Don’t worry, it will be all right.”

“B-but it’s my…”

The footman bowed and pushed open a door at the end of the corridor. Light within fell on the richness of brocade and polished wood. The chair I could see to one side had a family crest embroidered on its back; a clearer version of the worn stone shield I had seen outside.

A leopard couchant, holding in its paw a bunch of lilies – or were they crocuses? Alarm bells rang in my mind as the chair’s occupant rose, his shadow falling across the polished doorsill as he turned. Mary’s final anguished word made it out, neck and neck with the footman’s announcement.

“My g-g-godfather!” she said.

“His Grace, the Duke of Sandringham,” said the footman.

“Mrs… Beauchamp?” said the Duke, his mouth dropping open in astonishment.

“Well,” I said weakly. “Something like that.”

The door of the drawing room closed behind me, leaving me alone with His Grace. My last sight of Mary had been of her standing out in the hall, eyes like saucers, mouth opening and shutting silently like a goldfish.

There were huge Chinese jars flanking the windows, and inlaid tables under them. A bronze Venus posed coquettishly on the mantelpiece, companioned by a pair of gold-rimmed porcelain bowls and silver-gilt candelabra, blazing with beeswax candles. A close-napped carpet that I recognized as a very good Kermanshah covered most of the floor and a spinet crouched in one corner; what little space was left bare was occupied by marquetried furniture and the odd bit of statuary.

“Nice place you have here,” I remarked graciously to the Duke, who had been standing before the fire, hands folded beneath his coattail as he watched me, an expression of wary amusement on the broad, florid face.

“Thank you,” he said, in the piping tenor that came so oddly from that barrel-chested frame. “Your presence adorns it, my dear.” Amusement won out over wariness, and he smiled, a bluff, disarming grin.

“Why Beauchamp?” he asked. “That isn’t by chance your real name, is it?”

“My maiden name,” I answered, rattled into the truth. His thick blond eyebrows shot up.

“Are you French?”

“No. English. I couldn’t use Fraser, though, could I?”

“I see.” Brows still raised, he nodded at a small brocaded love seat, inviting me to be seated. It was richly carved and beautifully proportioned, a museum piece, like everything else in the room. I swept my sodden skirts to one side as gracefully as I could, ignoring their liberal stains of mud and horsehair, and delicately lowered myself onto the primrose satin.

The Duke paced slowly back and forth before the fire, watching me, still with a slight smile on his features. I fought the growing warmth and comfort that spread through my aching legs, threatening to drag me into the abyss of fatigue that gaped open at my feet. This was no time to let down my guard.

“Which are you?” the Duke inquired suddenly. “An English hostage, a fervent Jacobite, or a French agent?”

I rubbed two fingers over the ache between my eyes. The correct answer was “none of the above,” but I didn’t think it would get me very far.

“The hospitality of this house seems a trifle lacking by comparison with its appointments,” I said, as haughtily as I could manage under the circumstances, which wasn’t all that much. Still, Louise’s example of great-ladydom had not been entirely in vain.

The Duke laughed, a high, chittering sort of laugh, like a bat that has just heard a good one.

“Your pardon, Madam. You’re quite right; I should have thought to offer you refreshment before presuming to question you. Most thoughtless of me.”

He murmured something to the footman who appeared in answer to his ring, then waited calmly before the fire for the tray to arrive. I sat in silence, glancing around the room, occasionally stealing a look at my host. Neither of us was interested in making small talk. Despite his outward geniality, this was an armed truce, and both of us knew it.

What I wanted to know was why. No stranger to people wondering who in hell I was, I rather wondered myself where the Duke came into it. Or where he thought I did. He had met me twice before, as Mrs. Fraser, wife of the laird of Lallybroch. Now I had turned up on his doorstep, posing as an English hostage named Beauchamp lately rescued from a gang of Scottish Jacobites. That was enough to make anyone wonder. But his attitude toward me went a long way past simple curiosity.

The tea arrived, complete with scones and cake. The Duke picked up his own cup, motioned to mine with a lift of one brow, and we took tea, still both in silence. Somewhere on the other side of the house, I could hear a muffled banging, as of someone hammering. The soft chime of the Duke’s cup against its saucer was the signal for the resumption of hostilities.

“Now, then,” he said, with as much firmness as a man who sounded like Mickey Mouse could manage. “Let me begin, Mrs. Fraser – I may call you so? Thank you. Let me begin by saying that I know a great deal about you already. I intend to know more. You will do well to answer me fully and without hesitations. I must say, Mrs. Fraser, that you are amazingly difficult to kill” – he bowed slightly in my direction, that smile still on his lips – “but I feel sure that it could be accomplished, given sufficient determination.”

I stared at him, unmoving; not out of any native sang-froid, but from simple dumbfoundedness. Adopting another of Louise’s mannerisms, I raised both eyebrows inquiringly, sipped tea, then patted my lips delicately with the monogrammed serviette provided.

“I am afraid you will think me dense, Your Grace,” I said politely, “but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Haven’t you, my dear?”

The small, jolly blue eyes didn’t blink. He reached for the silver-gilt bell on the tray and rang it once.

The man must have been waiting in the next room for the summons, for the door opened immediately. A tall, lean man in the dark habiliments and good linen of an upper servant advanced to the Duke’s side and bowed deeply.

“Your Grace?” He spoke English, but the French accent was unmistakable. The face was French, too; long-nosed and white, with thin, tight lips and a pair of ears that stood out from his head like small wings on either side, their tips fiercely red. His lean face grew still paler as he looked up and spotted me, and he took an involuntary step backward.

Sandringham watched this with a frown of irritation, then switched his gaze to me.

“You don’t recognize him?” he asked.

I was beginning to shake my head, when the man’s right hand twitched suddenly against the cloth of his breeches. As unobtrusively as possible, he was making the sign of the horns, middle fingers folded down, index and little finger pointed at me. I knew, then, and in the next instant had seen the confirmation of my knowledge – the small beauty mark above the fork of his thumb.

I hadn’t the slightest doubt; it was the man in the spotted shirt who had attacked me and Mary in Paris. And all too obviously in the Duke’s employ.

“You bloody bastard!” I said. I leaped to my feet, overturning the tea table, and snatched up the nearest object to hand, a carved alabaster tobacco jar. I hurled it at the man’s head, and he turned and fled precipitately, the heavy jar missing him by inches to smash against the door frame.

The door slammed to as I started after him, and I stopped in my tracks, breathing heavily. I glared at Sandringham, hands braced on my hips.

“Who is he?” I demanded.

“My valet,” said the Duke calmly. “Albert Danton, by name. A good fellow with neckcloths and stockings, but a trifle excitable, as so many of these Frenchmen are. Incredibly superstitious, too.” He frowned disapprovingly at the closed door. “Bloody papists, with all these saints and smells and such. Believe anything at all.”

My breathing was slowing, though my heart still banged against the whalebones of my bodice. I had trouble drawing a deep breath.

“You filthy, disgusting, outrageous… pervert!”

The Duke seemed bored by this, and nodded negligently.

“Yes, yes, my dear. All that, I’m sure, and more. A trifle unlucky, too, at least on that occasion.”

“Unlucky? Is that what you’d call it?” Unsteadily, I moved to the love seat, and sat down. My hands were shaking with nerves, and I clasped them together, hidden in the folds of my skirt.

“On several counts, my dear lady. Just look at it.” He spread out both hands in graceful entreaty. “I send Danton to dispose of you. He and his companions decide to entertain themselves a bit first; that’s all well and good, but in the process, they get a good look at you, leap unaccountably to the conclusion that you’re a witch of some kind, lose their heads entirely and run off. But not before debauching my goddaughter, who is present by accident, thus ruining all chance of the excellent marriage I had painstakingly arranged for her. Consider the irony of it!”

The shocks were coming thick and fast, and I hardly knew which to respond to first. There seemed one particularly striking statement in this speech, though.

“What do you mean ‘dispose of me’?” I demanded. “Do you mean to say you actually tried to have me killed?” The room seemed to be swaying a bit, and I took a deep gulp of tea as being the nearest thing to a restorative available. It wasn’t terribly effective.

“Well, yes,” Sandringham said pleasantly. “That was the point I was endeavoring to make. Tell me, my dear, would you care for a cup of sherry?”

I eyed him narrowly for a moment. Having just stated that he’d tried to have me killed, he now expected me to accept a cup of sherry from his hands?

“Brandy,” I said. “Lots of it.”

He giggled in that high-pitched way again, and made his way to the sideboard, remarking over his shoulder, “Captain Randall said you were a most diverting woman. Quite an encomium from the Captain, you know. He hasn’t much use for women ordinarily, though they swarm over him. His looks, I suppose; it can’t be his manner.”

“So Jack Randall does work for you,” I said, taking the glass he handed me. I had watched him pour out two glasses, and was sure that both contained nothing but brandy. I took a large and sorely needed swallow.

The Duke matched me, blinking his eyes at the effect of the pungent liquid.

“Of course,” he said. “Often the best tool is the most dangerous. One doesn’t hesitate to use it on that account; one merely makes sure to take adequate precautions.”

“Dangerous, eh? Just how much do you know about Jonathan Randall?” I asked curiously.

The Duke tittered. “Oh, virtually everything, I should think, my dear. Most likely a great deal more than you do, in fact. It doesn’t do to employ a man like that without having a means at hand to control him, you know. And money is a good bridle, but a weak rein.”

“Unlike blackmail?” I said dryly.

He sat back, hands clasped across his bulging stomach, and regarded me with bland interest.

“Ah. You are thinking that blackmail might work both ways, I suppose?” He shook his head, dislodging a few grains of snuff that floated down onto the silk waistcoat.

“No, my dear. For one thing, there is something of a difference in our stations. While rumor of that sort might affect my reception in some circles of society, that is not a matter of grave concern to me. While for the good Captain – well, the army takes a very dim view of such unnatural predilections. The penalty is often death, in fact. No, not much comparison, really.” He cocked his head to one side, so far as the multiple chins allowed.

“But it is neither the promise of wealth nor the threat of exposure that binds John Randall to me,” he said. The small, watery blue eyes gleamed in their orbits. “He serves me because I can give him what he desires.”

I eyed the corpulent frame with unconcealed disgust, making His Grace shake with laughter.

“No, not that,” he said. “The Captain’s tastes are somewhat more refined than that. Unlike my own.”

“What, then?”

“Punishment,” he said softly. “But you know that, don’t you? Or at least your husband does.”

I felt unclean simply from being near him, and rose to get away. The shards of the alabaster tobacco jar lay on the floor, and I kicked one inadvertently, so that it pinged off the wall, ricocheting and spinning off under the love seat, reminding me of the recent Danton.

I wasn’t at all sure that I wanted to discuss the subject of my aborted murder with him, but it seemed at the moment preferable to some alternatives.

“What did you want to kill me for?” I asked abruptly, turning to face him. I glanced quickly over the collection of objects on a piecrust table, looking for a suitable weapon of defense, just in case he still felt the urge.

He didn’t seem to. Instead, he bent laboriously over and picked up the teapot – miraculously unbroken – and set it upright on the restored tea table.

“It seemed expedient at the time,” he said calmly. “I had learned that you and your husband were attempting to thwart a particular affair in which I had interested myself. I considered removing your husband instead, but it seemed too dangerous, what with his close relation to two of the greatest families in Scotland.”

“Considered removing him?” A light dawned – one of many that were going off in my skull like fireworks. “Was it you who sent the seamen who attacked Jamie in Paris?”

The Duke nodded in offhand manner.

“That seemed the simplest method, if a bit crude. But then, Dougal Mac-Kenzie turned up in Paris, and I wondered whether in fact your husband was in fact working for the Stuarts. I became unsure where his interests lay.”

What I was wondering was just where the Duke’s interests lay. This odd speech made it sound very much as though he was a secret Jacobite – and if so, he’d done a really masterly job of keeping his secrets.

“And then,” he went on, delicately placing the teapot’s lid back in place, “there was your growing friendship with Louis of France. Even had your husband failed with the bankers, Louis could have supplied Charles Stuart with what he needed – provided you kept your pretty nose out of the affair.”

He frowned closely at the scone he was holding, flicked a couple of threads off it, then decided against eating it and tossed it onto the table.

“Once it became clear what was really happening, I tried to lure your husband back to Scotland, with the offer of a pardon; very expensive, that was,” he said reflectively. “And all for nothing, too!

“But then I recalled your husband’s apparent devotion to you – quite touching,” he said, with a benevolent smile that I particularly disliked. “I supposed that your tragic demise might well distract him from the endeavor in which he was engaged without provoking the sort of interest his own murder would have involved.”

Suddenly thinking of something, I turned to look at the harpsichord in the corner of the room. Several sheets of music adorned its rack, written in a fine, clear hand. Fifty thousand pounds, upon the occasion of Your Highness’s setting foot in Scotland. Signed S. “S,” of course, for Sandringham. The Duke laughed, in apparent delight.

“That was really very clever of you, my dear. It must have been you; I’d heard of your husband’s unfortunate inability with music.”

“Actually, it wasn’t,” I replied, turning back from the piano. The table at my side lacked anything useful in the way of letter openers or blunt objects, but I hastily picked up a vase, and buried my face in the mass of hothouse flowers it held. I closed my eyes, feeling the brush of cool petals against my suddenly heated cheeks. I didn’t dare to look up, for fear my telltale face would give me away.

For behind the Duke’s shoulder, I had seen a round, leathery object, shaped like a pumpkin, framed by the green velvet draperies like one of the Duke’s exotic art objects. I opened my eyes, peering cautiously through the petals, and the wide, snaggle-toothed mouth split in a grin like a jack-o’-lantern’s.

I was torn between terror and relief. I had been right, then, about the beggar near the gate. It was Hugh Munro, an old companion from Jamie’s days as a Highland outlaw. A one-time schoolmaster, he had been captured by the Turks at sea, disfigured by torture, and driven to beggary and poaching – professions he augmented by successful spying. I had heard he was an agent of the Highland army, but hadn’t realized his activities had brought him so far south.

How long had he been there, perched like a bird on the ivy outside the second-story window? I didn’t dare try to communicate with him; it was all I could do to keep my eyes fixed on a point just above the Duke’s shoulder, gazing with apparent indifference into space.

The Duke was regarding me with interest. “Really? Not Gerstmann, surely? I shouldn’t have thought he had a sufficiently devious mind.”

“And you think I do? I’m flattered.” I kept my nose in the flowers, speaking distractedly into a peony.

The figure outside released his grip on the ivy long enough to bring one hand up into view. Deprived of his tongue by his Saracen captors, Hugh Munro’s hands spoke for him. Staring intently at me, he pointed deliberately, first at me, then at himself, then off to one side. The broad hand tilted and the first two fingers became a pair of running legs, racing away to the east. A final wink, a clenched fist in salute, and he was gone.

I relaxed, trembling slightly with reaction, and took a deep, restorative breath. I sneezed, and put the flowers down.

“So you’re a Jacobite, are you?” I asked.

“Not necessarily,” the Duke answered genially. “The question is, my dear – are you?” Completely unselfconscious, he took off his wig and scratched his fair, balding head before putting it back on.

“You tried to stop the effort to restore King James to his throne when you were in Paris. Failing at that, you and your husband appear now to be His Highness’s most loyal supporters. Why?” The small blue eyes showed nothing more than a mild interest, but it wasn’t a mild interest that had tried to have me killed.

Ever since finding out who my host was, I had been trying as hard as I could to remember what it was that Frank and the Reverend Mr. Wakefield had once said about him. Was he a Jacobite? So far as I could recall, the verdict of history – in the persons of Frank and the Reverend – was uncertain. So was I.

“I don’t believe I’m going to tell you,” I said slowly.

One blond brow arched high, the Duke took a small enameled box from his pocket and abstracted a pinch of the contents.

“Are you sure that’s wise, my dear? Danton is still within call, you know.”

“Danton wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole,” I said bluntly. “Neither would you, for that matter. Not,” I added hastily, seeing his mouth open, “on that account. But if you want so badly to know which side I’m on, you aren’t going to kill me before finding out, now, are you?”

The Duke choked on his pinch of snuff and coughed heavily, thumping himself on the chest of his embroidered waistcoat. I drew myself up and stared coldly down my nose at him as he sneezed and spluttered.

“You’re trying to frighten me into telling you things, but it won’t work,” I said, with a lot more confidence than I felt.

Sandringham dabbed gently at his streaming eyes with a handkerchief. At last he drew a deep breath, and blew it out between plump, pursed lips as he stared at me.

“Very well, then,” he said, quite calmly. “I imagine my workmen have finished their alterations to your quarters by now. I shall summon a maid to take you to your room.”

I must have gawped foolishly at him, for he smiled derisively as he hoisted himself out of his chair.

“To a point, you know, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “Whatever else you may be or whatever information you may possess, you have one invaluable attribute as a houseguest.”

“And what’s that?” I demanded. He paused, hand on the bell, and smiled.

“You’re Red Jamie’s wife,” he said softly. “And he is fond of you, my dear, is he not?”

As prisons go, I had seen worse. The room measured perhaps thirty feet in each dimension, and was furnished with a lavishness exceeded only by the sitting room downstairs. The canopied bed stood on a small dais, with baldachins of ostrich feathers sprouting from the corners of its damask drapes, and a pair of matching brocaded chairs squatted comfortably before a huge fireplace.

The maidservant who had accompanied me in set down the basin and ewer she carried, and hurried to light the ready-laid fire. The footman laid his covered supper-tray on the table by the door, then stood stolidly in the doorway, dishing any thoughts I might have had of trying a quick dash down the hall. Not that it would do me much good to try, I thought gloomily; I’d be hopelessly lost in the house after the first turn of the corridor; the bloody place was as big as Buckingham Palace.

“I’m sure His Grace hopes as you’ll be comfortable, ma’am,” said the servant, curtsying prettily on her way out.

“Oh, I’ll bet he does,” I said, ungraciously.

The door closed behind her with a depressingly solid thud, and the grating sound of the big key turning seemed to scrape away the last bit of insulation covering my raw nerves.

Shivering in the chill of the vast room, I clutched my elbows and walked to the fire, where I subsided into one of the chairs. My impulse was to take advantage of the solitude to have a nice private little fit of hysterics. On the other hand, I was afraid that if I allowed my tight-reined emotions any play at all, I would never get them in check again. I closed my eyes tight and watched the red flicker of the firelight on my inner eyelids, willing myself to calmness.

After all, I was in no danger for the moment, and Hugh Munro was on his way to Jamie. Even if Jamie had lost my trail over the course of the week’s travel, Hugh would find him and lead him right. Hugh knew every cottar and tinker, every farmhouse and manor within four parishes. A message from the speechless man would travel through the network of news and gossip as quickly as the wind-driven clouds passed over the mountains. If he had made it down from his lofty perch in the ivy and safely off the Duke’s grounds without being apprehended, that was.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said aloud, “the man’s a professional poacher. Of course he made it.” The echo of my words against the ornate white-plaster ceiling was somehow comforting.

“And if so,” I continued firmly, still talking to hear myself, “then Jamie will come.”

Right, I thought suddenly. And Sandringham’s men will be waiting for him, when he does. You’re Red Jamie’s wife, the Duke had said. My one invaluable attribute. I was bait.

“I’m a salmon egg!” I exclaimed, sitting up straight in my chair. The sheer indignity of the image summoned up a small but welcome spurt of rage that pushed the fear back a little way. I tried to fan the flames of anger by getting up and striding back and forth, thinking of new names to call the Duke next time we met. I’d gotten as far in my compositions as “skulking pederast,” when a muffled shouting from outside distracted my attention.

Pushing back the heavy velvet drapes from the window, I found that the Duke had been as good as his word. Stout wooden bars crisscrossed the window frame, latticed so closely together that I could scarcely thrust an arm between them. I could see, though.

Dusk had fallen, and the shadows under the park trees were black as ink. The shouting was coming from there, matched by answering cries from the stables, where two or three figures suddenly appeared, bearing lit torches.

The small, dark figures ran toward the wood, the fire of their pine torches streaming backward, flaring orange in the cold, damp wind. As they reached the edge of the park, a knot of vaguely human shapes became visible, tumbling onto the grass before the house. The ground was wet, and the force of their struggle left deep gashes of black in the winter-dead lawn.

I stood on tiptoe, gripping the bars and pressing my head against the wood in an effort to see more. The light of the day had failed utterly, and by the torchlight, I could distinguish no more than the occasional flailing limb in the riot below.

It couldn’t be Jamie, I told myself, trying to swallow the lump in my throat that was my heart. Not so soon, not now. And not alone, surely he wouldn’t have come alone? For I could see by now that the fight centered on one man, now on his knees, no more than a hunched black shape under the fists and sticks of the Duke’s gamekeepers and stable-lads.

Then the hunched figure sprawled flat, and the shouting died, though a few more blows were given for good measure before the small gang of servants stood back. A few words of conversation were exchanged, inaudible from my vantage point, and two of the men stooped and seized the figure beneath the arms. As they passed beneath my third-floor window on their way toward the back of the house, the torchlight illuminated a pair of dragging, sandal-shod feet, and the tatters of a grimy smock. Not Jamie.

One of the stable-lads scampered alongside, triumphantly carrying a thick leather wallet on a strap. I was too far above to hear the clink of the tiny metal ornaments on the strap, but they glittered in the torchlight, and all the strength went from my arms in a rush of horror and despair.

They were coins and buttons, the small metal objects. And gaberlunzies. The tiny lead seals that gave a beggar license to plead his poverty through a given parish. Hugh Munro had four of them, a mark of favor for his trials at the hands of the Turk. Not Jamie, but Hugh.

I was shaking so badly that my legs would hardly carry me, but I ran to the door and pounded on it with all my strength.

“Let me out!” I shrieked. “I have to see the Duke! Let me out, I say!”

There was no response to my continued yelling and pounding, and I dashed back to the window. The scene below was eminently peaceful now; a boy stood holding a torch for one of the gardeners, who was kneeling at the edge of the lawn, tenderly replacing the divots of turf dug up by the fight.

“Hoy!” I roared. Covered as they were by bars, I couldn’t crank the casements outward. I ran across the room to fetch one of the heavy silver candlesticks, dashed back, and smashed a pane of glass, heedless of the flying fragments.

“Help! Ahoy, down there! Tell the Duke I want to see him! Now! Help!” I thought one of the figures turned its head toward me, but neither made any motion toward the house, going on with their work as though no more than a night bird’s cry disturbed the darkness around them.

Back to the door I ran, hammering and shouting, and back to the window, and back to the door again. I shouted, pleaded, and threatened until my throat was raw and hoarse, and beat upon the unyielding door until my fists were red and bruised, but no one came. I might have been alone in the great house, for all I could hear. The silence in the hallway was as deep as that of the night outside; as silent as the grave. All check on my fear was gone, and I sank at last to my knees before the door, sobbing without restraint.

I woke, chilled and stiff, with a throbbing headache, to feel something wide and solid shoving me across the floor. I came awake with a jerk as the opening edge of the heavy door pinched my thigh against the floor.

“Ow!” I rolled clumsily, then scrabbled to my hands and knees, hair hanging in my face.

“Claire! Oh, do be quiet, p-please! Darling, are you hurt?” With a rustle of starched lawn, Mary dropped to her knees beside me. Behind her, the door swung shut and I heard the click of the lock above.

“Yes – I mean, no. I’m all right,” I said dazedly. “But Hugh…” I clamped my lips shut and shook my head, trying to clear it. “What in bloody hell are you doing here, Mary?”

“I b-bribed the housekeeper to let me in,” she whispered. “Must you talk so loudly?”

“It doesn’t matter much,” I said, in a normal tone of voice. “That door’s so thick, nothing short of a football match could be heard through it.”

“A what?”

“Never mind.” My mind was beginning to clear, though my eyes were sticky and swollen and my head still throbbed like a drum. I pushed myself to my feet and staggered to the basin, where I splashed cold water over my face.

“You bribed the housekeeper?” I said, wiping my face with a towel. “But we’re still locked in, aren’t we? I heard the key turn.”

Mary was pale in the dimness of the room. The candle had guttered out while I slept on the floor, and there was no light but the deep red glow of the fireplace embers. She bit her lip.

“It was the b-best I could do. Mrs. Gibson was too afraid of the Duke to give me a key. All she would do was agree to lock me in with you, and let me out in the morning. I thought you m-might like company,” she added timidly.

“Oh,” I said. “Well… thank you. It was a kind thought.” I took a new candle from the drawer and went to the fireplace to light it. The candlestick was clotted with wax from the burned-out candle; I tipped a small puddle of melted wax onto the tabletop and set the fresh candle in it, heedless of damage to the Duke’s intaglio.

“Claire,” Mary said. “Are you… are you in trouble?”

I bit my lip to prevent a hasty reply. After all, she was only seventeen, and her ignorance of politics was probably even more profound than her lack of knowledge of men had been.

“Er, yes,” I said. “Rather a lot, I’m afraid.” My brain was starting to work again. Even if Mary was not equipped to be of much practical help in escaping, she might at least be able to provide me with information about her godfather and the doings of his household.

“Did you hear the racket out by the wood earlier?” I asked. She shook her head. She was beginning to shiver; in such a large room, the heat of the fire died away long before it reached the bed dais.

“No, but I heard one of the cookmaids saying the keepers had caught a poacher in the park. It’s awfully cold. Can’t we get into b-bed?”

She was already crawling across the coverlet, burrowing beneath the bolster for the edge of the sheet. Her bottom was round and neat, childlike under the white nightdress.

“That wasn’t a poacher,” I said. “Or rather it was, but it was also a friend. He was on his way to find Jamie, to tell him I was here. Do you know what happened after the keepers took him?”

Mary swung around, face a pale blur within the shadows of the bed hangings. Even in this light, I could see that the dark eyes had grown huge.

“Oh, Claire! I’m so sorry!”

“Well, so am I,” I said impatiently. “Do you know where the poacher is, though?” If Hugh had been imprisoned somewhere accessible, like the stables, there was a bare chance that Mary might be able to release him somehow in the morning.

The trembling of her lips, making her normal stutter seem comprehensible by comparison, should have warned me. But the words, once she got them out, struck through my heart, sharp and sudden as a thrown dirk.

“Th-they h-h-hanged him,” she said. “At the p-park g-gate.”

It was some time before I was able to pay attention to my surroundings. The flood of shock, grief, fear, and shattered hope washed over me, swamping me utterly. I was dimly conscious of Mary’s small hand timidly patting my shoulder, and her voice offering handkerchiefs and drinks of water, but remained curled in a ball, not speaking, but shaking, and waiting for the relaxation of the wrenching despair that clenched my stomach like a fist. Finally I exhausted the panic, if not myself, and opened my eyes blearily.

“I’ll be all right,” I said at last, sitting up and wiping my nose inelegantly on my sleeve. I took the proffered towel and blotted my eyes with it. Mary hovered over me, looking concerned, and I reached out and squeezed her hand reassuringly.

“Really,” I said. “I’m all right now. And I’m very glad you’re here.” A thought struck me, and I dropped the towel, looking curiously at her.

“Come to think of it, why are you here?” I asked. “In this house, I mean.”

She looked down, blushing, and picked at the coverlet.

“The D-Duke is my godfather, you know.”

“Yes, so I gathered,” I said. “Somehow I doubt that he merely wanted the pleasure of your company, though.”

She smiled a little at the remark. “N-no. But he – the Duke, I mean – he thinks he’s found another h-h-husband for me.” The effort to get out “husband” left her red-faced. “Papa brought me here to meet him.”

I gathered from her demeanor that this wasn’t news requiring immediate congratulations. “Do you know the man?”

Only by name, it turned out. A Mr. Isaacson, an importer, of London. Too busy to travel all the way to Edinburgh to meet his intended, he had agreed to come to Bellhurst, where the marriage would take place, all parties being agreeable.

I picked up the silver-backed hairbrush from the bed table and abstractedly began to tidy my hair. So, having failed to secure an alliance with the French nobility, the Duke was intending to sell his goddaughter to a wealthy Jew.

“I have a new trousseau,” Mary said, trying to smile. “Forty-three embroidered petticoats – two with g-gold thread.” She broke off, her lips pressed tight together, staring down sightlessly at her bare left hand. I put my own hand over it.

“Well.” I tried to be encouraging. “Perhaps he’ll be a kind man.”

“That’s what I’m af-fraid of.” Avoiding my questioning look, she glanced down, twisting her hands together in her lap.

“They didn’t tell Mr. Isaacson – about P-Paris. And they say I mustn’t, either.” Her face crumpled miserably. “They brought a horrible old woman to tell me how I must act on my w-w-wedding night, to – to pretend it’s the first time, but I… oh, Claire, how can I do it?” she wailed. “And Alex – I didn’t tell him; I couldn’t! I was such a coward, I d-didn’t even say goodbye!”

She threw herself into my arms, and I patted her back, losing a little of my own grief in the effort to comfort her. At length, she grew calmer, and sat up, hiccuping, to take a little water.

“Are you going to go through with it?” I asked. She looked up at me, her lashes spiked and wet.

“I haven’t any choice,” she said simply.

“But-” I started, and then stopped, helpless.

She was quite right. Young and female, with no resources, and no man who could come to her rescue, there was simply nothing to do but to accede to her father’s and godfather’s wishes, and marry the unknown Mr. Isaacson of London.

Heavyhearted, neither of us had any appetite for the food on the tray. We crawled under the covers to keep warm, and Mary, worn out with emotion, was sound asleep within minutes. No less exhausted, I found myself unable to sleep, grieving for Hugh, worried for Jamie, and curious about the Duke.

The sheets were chilly, and my feet seemed like chunks of ice. Avoiding the more distressful things on my mind, I turned my thoughts to Sandringham. What was his place in this affair?

To all appearances, the man was a Jacobite. He had, by his own admission, been willing to do murder – or pay for it, at least – in order to ensure that Charles got the backing he needed to launch his expedition to Scotland. And the evidence of the musical cipher made it all but certain that it was the Duke who had finally induced Charles to set sail in August, with his promise of help.

There were certainly men who took pains to conceal their Jacobite sympathies; given the penalties for treason, it was hardly peculiar. And the Duke had a good deal more to lose than some, should he back a failing cause.

Still, Sandringham hardly struck me as an enthusiastic supporter of the Stuart monarchy. Given his remarks about Danton, clearly he wouldn’t be in sympathy with a Catholic ruler. And why wait so long to provide support, when Charles was in desperate need of money now – and had been, in fact, ever since his arrival in Scotland?

I could think of two conceivable reasons for the Duke’s behavior, neither particularly creditable to the gentleman, but both well within the bounds of his character.

He could in fact be a Jacobite, willing to countenance an unpalatable Catholic king in return for the future benefits he might anticipate as chief backer of the restored Stuart monarchy. I could see that; “principle” wasn’t in the man’s vocabulary, whereas “self-interest” clearly was a term he knew well. He might wish to wait until Charles reached England, in order that the money not be wasted before the Highland army’s final, crucial push to London. Anyone familiar with Charles Stuart could see the common sense in not entrusting him with too much money at once.

Or, for that matter, he might have wished to ensure that the Stuarts did in fact have some substantial backing for their cause before becoming financially involved himself; after all, contributing to a rebellion is not the same thing as supporting an entire army single-handed.

Contrariwise, I could see a much more sinister reason for the conditions of the Duke’s offer. Making support conditional on the Jacobite army reaching English soil ensured that Charles would struggle on against the increasing opposition of his own leaders, dragging his reluctant, straggling army farther and farther south, away from the sheltering mountains in which they might find refuge.

If the Duke could expect benefits from the Stuarts for help in restoring them, what might he expect from the Hanovers, in return for luring Charles Stuart within their reach – and betraying him and his followers into the hands of the English army?

History had not been able to say what the Duke’s true leanings had been. That struck me as odd; surely he would have to reveal his true intent sooner or later. Of course, I mused, the Old Fox, Lord Lovat, had managed to play off both sides of the Jacobite Rising last time, simultaneously ingratiating himself with the Hanovers and retaining the favor of the Stuarts. And Jamie had done it himself, for a time. Maybe it wasn’t all that difficult to hide one’s loyalties, in the constantly shifting morass of Royal politics.

The chill was creeping up my feet, and I moved my legs restlessly, my skin seeming numb as I rubbed my calves together. Legs obviously generated much less friction than dry sticks; no perceptible warmth resulted from this activity.

Lying sleepless, restless and clammy, I suddenly became aware of a tiny, rhythmic popping noise next to me. I turned my head, listening, then raised up on one elbow and peered incredulously at my companion. She was curled on her side, delicate skin flushed with sleep, so that she looked like a hothouse flower in full bloom, thumb tucked securely in the soft pink recesses of her mouth. Her lower lip moved as I watched, in the faintest of sucking motions.

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. In the end, I did neither; merely pulled the thumb gently free and laid the limp hand curled upon her bosom. I blew out the candle and cuddled close to Mary.

Whether it was the innocence of that small gesture, with the far-off memories of trust and safety it provoked, the simple comfort of a warm body nearby, or only the exhaustion of fear and grief, my feet thawed, I relaxed at last, and fell asleep.

Wrapped in a warm cocoon of quilts, I slept deep and dreamlessly. It was all the greater a shock, then, when I was jerked abruptly from the soft, quiet dark of oblivion. It was still dark – black as a coachman’s hat, in fact, as the fire had gone out – but the surroundings were neither soft nor quiet. Something heavy had landed suddenly on the bed, striking my arm in the process, and was apparently in the process of murdering Mary.

The bed heaved and the mattress tilted sharply under me, the bedframe shuddering with the force of the struggle taking place next to me. Agonized grunts and whispered threats came from close at hand, and a flailing hand – Mary’s, I thought – struck me in the eye.

I rolled hastily out of bed, tripping on the step of the dais and falling flat on the floor. The sounds of struggle above me intensified, with a horrible, high-pitched squealing noise that I took to be Mary’s best effort at a scream while being strangled.

There was a sudden startled exclamation, in a deep male voice, then a further convulsion of bedclothes, and the squealing stopped abruptly. Moving hastily, I found the flint box on the table and struck a light for the candle. Its wavering flame strengthened and rose, revealing what I had suspected from the sound of that vigorous Gaelic expletive – Mary, invisible save for a pair of wildly scrabbling hands, face smothered under a pillow and body flattened by the prostrate form of my large and agitated husband, who despite his advantage of size, appeared to have his hands well and truly full.

Intent on subduing Mary, he hadn’t glanced up at the newly lit candle, but went on trying to capture her hands, while simultaneously holding the pillow over her face. Suppressing the urge to laugh hysterically at the spectacle, I instead set down the candle, leaned over the bed, and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Jamie?” I said.

“Jesus!” He leaped like a salmon, springing off the bed and coming to rest on the floor in a crouch, dirk half-drawn. He saw me then, and sagged in relief, closing his eyes for an instant.

“Jesus God, Sassenach! Never do that again, d’ye hear? Be quiet,” he said briefly to Mary, who had escaped from the pillow and was now sitting bolt upright in bed, bug-eyed and spluttering. “I didna mean ye harm; I thought ye were my wife.” He strode purposefully round the bed, took me by both shoulders and kissed me hard, as though to reassure himself that he’d got the right woman now. He had, and I kissed him back with considerable fervor, reveling in the scrape of his unshaven beard and the warm, pungent scent of him; damp linen and wool, with a strong hint of male sweat.

“Get dressed,” he said, letting go. “The damn house is crawling wi’ servants. It’s like an ant’s nest below.”

“How did you get in here?” I asked, looking around for my discarded gown.

“Through the door, of course,” he said impatiently. “Here.” He seized my gown from the back of a chair and tossed it at me. Sure enough, the massive door stood open, a great ring of keys protruding from the lock.

“But how…” I began.

“Later,” he said brusquely. He spotted Mary, out of bed and struggling into her nightrobe. “Best get back in bed, lassie,” he advised. “The floor’s cold.”

“I’m coming with you.” The words were muffled by the folds of cloth, but her determination was evident as her head popped through the neck of the robe and emerged, tousled-haired and defiant.

“The hell you are,” Jamie said. He glared at her, and I noticed the fresh, raw scratches down his cheek. Seeing the quiver of her lips, though, he mastered his temper with an effort, and spoke reassuringly. “Dinna mind, lassie. You’ll have no trouble over it. I’ll lock the door behind us, and ye can tell everyone in the morning what’s happened. No one shall hold ye to blame.”

Ignoring this, Mary thrust her feet hastily into her slippers and ran toward the door.

“Hey! Where d’ye think you’re going?” Startled, Jamie swung around after her, but not soon enough to stop her reaching the door. She stood in the hallway just outside, poised like a deer.

“I’m going with you!” she said fiercely. “If you don’t take me, I shall run down the corridor, screaming as loudly as I can. So there!”

Jamie stared at her, his hair gleaming copper in the candlelight and the blood rising in his face, obviously torn between the necessity for silence and the urge to kill her with his bare hands and damn the noise. Mary glared back, one hand holding up her skirts, ready to run. Now dressed and shod, I poked him in the ribs, breaking his concentration.

“Take her,” I said briefly. “Let’s go.”

He gave me a look that was twin to the one he’d been giving Mary, but hesitated no more than a moment. With a short nod, he took my arm and the three of us hurried out into the chill darkness of the corridor.

The house was at once deathly still and full of noises; boards squeaked loud beneath our feet and our garments rustled like leaves in a gale. The walls seemed to breathe with the settlings of wood, and small, half-heard sounds beyond the corridor suggested the secretive burrowings of animals underground. And over all was the deep and frightening silence of a great, dark house, sunk in a sleep that must not be broken.

Mary’s hand was tight on my arm, as we crept down the hall behind Jamie. He moved like a shadow, hugging the wall, but quickly, for all his silence.

As we passed one door, I heard the sound of soft footsteps on the other side. Jamie heard them, too, and flattened himself against the wall, motioning Mary and me ahead of him. The plaster of the wall was cold against the palms of my hands, as I tried to press backward into it.

The door opened cautiously, and a head in a puffy white mobcap poked out, peering down the hall in the direction away from us.

“Hullo?” it said in a whisper. “Is that you, Albert?” A tickle of cold sweat ran down my spine. A housemaid, apparently expecting a visitation from the Duke’s valet, who seemed to be keeping up the reputation of Frenchmen.

I didn’t think she was going to consider an armed Highlander an adequate substitute for her absent lover. I could feel Jamie tense beside me, trying to overcome his scruples against striking a woman. Another instant, and she would turn, see him, and scream the house down.

I stepped out from the wall.

“Er, no,” I said apologetically, “I’m afraid it’s only me.”

The maidservant started convulsively, and I took a swift step past, so that she was facing me, with Jamie still behind her.

“Sorry to alarm you,” I said, smiling cheerily. “I couldn’t sleep, you see. Thought I’d try a spot of hot milk. Tell me, am I headed right for the kitchens?”

“Eh?” The maid, a plump miss in her early twenties, gaped unbecomingly, exposing evidence of a distressing lack of concern for dental hygiene. Luckily, it wasn’t the same maid who had seen me to my room; she might not realize that I was a prisoner, not a guest.

“I’m a guest in the house,” I said, driving the point home. Continuing on the principle that the best defense is a good offense, I stared accusingly at her.

“Albert, eh? Does His Grace know that you are in the habit of entertaining men in your room at night?” I demanded. This seemed to hit a nerve, for the woman paled and dropped to her knees, clutching at my skirt. The prospect of exposure was so alarming that she didn’t pause to ask exactly why a guest should be wandering about the halls in the wee hours of the morning, wearing not only gown and shoes, but a traveling cloak as well.

“Oh, mum! Please, you won’t say nothing to His Grace, will you? I can see you’ve a kind face, mum, surely you’d not want to see me dismissed from my place? Have pity on me, my lady, I’ve six brothers and sisters still at home, and I…”

“Now, now,” I soothed, patting her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t tell the Duke. You just go back to your bed, and…” Talking in the sort of voice one uses with children and mental patients, I eased her, still volubly protesting her innocence, back into the small closet of a room.

I shut the door on her and leaned against it for support. Jamie’s face loomed up from the shadows before me, grinning. He said nothing, but patted me on the head in congratulation, before taking my arm and urging me down the hall once more.

Mary was waiting under the window on the landing, her nightrobe glowing white in the moonlight that beamed momentarily through scudding clouds outside. A storm was gathering, from the looks of it, and I wondered whether this would help or hinder our escape.

Mary clutched at Jamie’s plaid as he stepped onto the landing.

“Shh!” she whispered. “Someone’s coming!”

Someone was; I could hear the faint thud of footsteps coming from below, and the pale wash of a candle lit the stairwell. Mary and I looked wildly about, but there was absolutely no place to hide. This was a back stair, meant for the servants’ use, and the landings were simple squares of flooring, totally unrelieved by furniture or convenient hangings.

Jamie sighed in resignation. Then, motioning me and Mary back into the hallway from which we had come, he drew his dirk and waited, poised in the shadowed corner of the landing.

Mary’s fingers clutched and twined with mine, squeezing tight in an agony of apprehension. Jamie had a pistol hanging from his belt, but plainly couldn’t use it within the house – and a servant would realize that, making it useless for threat. It would have to be the knife, and my stomach quivered with pity for the hapless servant who was just about to come face-to-face with fifteen stone of keyed-up Scot and the threat of black steel.

I was taking stock of my apparel, and thinking that I could spare one of my petticoats to be used for bindings, when the bowed head of the candle-bearer came in sight. The dark hair was parted down the middle and slicked with a stinkingly sweet pomade that at once brought back the memory of a dark Paris street and the curve of thin, cruel lips beneath a mask.

My gasp of recognition made Danton look up sharply, one step below the landing. The next instant, he was grasped by the neck and flung against the wall of the landing with a force that sent the candlestick flying through the air.

Mary had seen him too.

“That’s him!” she exclaimed, in her shock forgetting either to whisper or to stutter. “The man in Paris!”

Jamie had the feebly struggling valet squashed against the wall, held by one muscled forearm pressed across his chest. The man’s face, fading in and out as the light ebbed and flooded with the passing clouds, was ghastly pale. It grew paler in the next moment, as Jamie laid the edge of his blade against Danton’s throat.

I stepped onto the landing, not sure either what Jamie would do, or what I wanted him to do. Danton let out a strangled moan when he saw me, and made an abortive attempt to cross himself.

“La Dame Blanche!” he whispered, eyes starting in horror.

Jamie moved with sudden violence, grasping the man’s hair and jerking his head back so hard that it thumped against the paneling.

“Had I time, mo garhe, ye would die slow,” he whispered, and his voice lacked nothing in conviction, quiet as it was. “Count it God’s mercy I have not.” He yanked Danton’s head back even further, so I could see the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed convulsively, his eyes fixed on me in fear.

“You call her ‘Dame Blanche,’ ” Jamie said, between his teeth. “I call her wife! Let her face be the last that ye see, then!”

The knife ripped across the man’s throat with a violence that made Jamie grunt with the effort, and a dark sheet of blood sprayed over his shirt. The stench of sudden death filled the landing, with a wheezing, gurgling sound from the crumpled heap on the floor that seemed to go on for a very long time.

The sounds behind me brought me finally to my senses: Mary, being violently sick in the hallway. My first coherent thought was that the servants were going to have the hell of a mess to clean up in the morning. My second was for Jamie, seen in a flash of the fleeting moon. His face was spattered and his hair matted with droplets of blood, and he was breathing heavily. He looked as though he might be going to be sick, too.

I turned toward Mary, and saw, far beyond her down the hall, the crack of light behind an opening door. Someone was coming to investigate the noise. I grabbed the hem of her nightrobe, wiped it roughly across her mouth, and seized her by the arm, tugging her toward the landing.

“Come on!” I said. “Let’s get out of here!” Starting from his dazed contemplation of Danton’s corpse, Jamie shook himself suddenly, and returning to his senses, turned to the stair.

He seemed to know where we were going, leading us through the darkened corridors without hesitation. Mary stumbled along beside me, puffing, her breath loud as an engine in my ear.

At the scullery door, Jamie came to a sudden halt, and gave a low whistle. This was returned immediately, and the door swung open on a darkness inhabited by indistinct forms. One of these detached itself from the murk and hastened forward. A few muttered words were exchanged, and the man – whichever it was – reached for Mary and pulled her into the shadows. A cold draft told me there was an open door somewhere ahead.

Jamie’s hand on my shoulder steered me through the obstacles of the darkened scullery and some smaller chamber that seemed to be a lumber room of some sort; I barked my shin against something, but bit back the exclamation of pain.

Out in the free night at last, the wind seized my cloak and whirled it out in a exuberant balloon. After the nerve-stretching trek through the darkened house, I felt as though I might take wing, and sail for the sky.

The men around me seemed to share the mood of relief; there was a small outbreak of whispered remarks and muffled laughter, quickly shushed by Jamie. One at a time, the men flitted across the open space before the house, no more than shadows under the dancing moon. At my side, Jamie watched as they disappeared into the woods of the park.

“Where’s Murtagh?” he muttered, as though to himself, frowning after the last of his men. “Gone to look for Hugh, I suppose,” he said, in answer to his own question. “D’ye ken where he might be, Sassenach?”

I swallowed, feeling the wind bite cold beneath my cloak, memory killing the sudden exhilaration of freedom.

“Yes,” I said, and told him the bad news, as briefly as I could. His expression darkened under its mask of blood, and by the time I had finished, his face was hard as stone.

“D’ye mean just to stand there all night,” inquired a voice behind us, “or ought we to sound an alarm, so they’ll know where to look first?”

Jamie’s expression lightened slightly as Murtagh appeared from the shadows beside us, quiet as a wraith. He had a cloth-wrapped bundle under one arm; a joint from the kitchens, I thought, seeing the blotch of dark blood on the cloth. This impression was borne out by the large ham he had tucked beneath the other arm, and the strings of sausages about his neck.

Jamie wrinkled his nose, with a faint smile.

“Ye smell like a butcher, man. Can ye no go anywhere without thinkin’ of your stomach?”

Murtagh cocked his head to one side, taking in Jamie’s blood-spattered appearance.

“Better to look like the butcher than his wares, lad,” he said. “Shall we go?”

The trip through the park was dark and frightening. The trees were tall and widely spaced here, but there were saplings left to grow between them that changed abruptly into the menacing shapes of gamekeepers in the uncertain light. The clouds were gathering thicker, at least, and the full moon made fewer appearances, which was something to be grateful for. As we reached the far side of the park, it began to rain.

Three men had been left with the horses. Mary was already mounted before one of Jamie’s men. Plainly embarrassed by the necessity of riding astride, she kept tucking the folds of her nightrobe under her thighs, in a vain attempt to hide the fact that she had legs.

More experienced, but still cursing the heavy folds of my skirt, I plucked them up and set a foot in Jamie’s offered hand, swinging aboard with a practiced thump. The horse snorted at the impact and set his ears back.

“Sorry, cully,” I said without sympathy. “If you think that’s bad, just wait ’til he gets back on.”

Glancing around for the “he” in question, I found him under one of the trees, hand on the shoulder of a strange boy of about fourteen.

“Who’s that?” I asked, leaning over to attract the attention of Geordie Paul Fraser, who was busy tightening his girth next to me.

“Eh? Oh, him.” He glanced at the boy, then back at his reluctant girth, frowning. “His name’s Ewan Gibson. Hugh Munro’s eldest stepson. He was wi’ his da, seemingly, when the Duke’s keepers came on ’em. The lad got awa’, and we found him near the edge o’ the moor. He brought us here.” With a final unnecessary tug, he glared at the girth as though daring it to say something, then looked up at me.

“D’ye ken where the lad’s da is?” he asked abruptly.

I nodded, and the answer must have been plain in my face, for he turned to look at the boy. Jamie was holding the boy, hugged hard against his chest, and patting his back. As we watched, he held the boy away from him, both hands on his shoulders, and said something, looking down intently into his face. I couldn’t hear what it was, but after a moment, the boy straightened himself and nodded. Jamie nodded as well, and with a final clap on the shoulder, turned the lad toward one of the horses, where George McClure was already reaching down a hand to him. Jamie strode toward us, head down, and the end of his plaid fluttering free behind him, despite the cold wind and the spattering rain.

Geordie spat on the ground. “Poor bugger,” he said, without specifying whom he meant, and swung into his own saddle.

Near the southeast corner of the park we halted, the horses stamping and twitching, while two of the men disappeared back into the trees. It cannot have been more than twenty minutes, but it seemed twice as long before they came back.

The men rode double now, and the second horse bore a long, hunched shape bound across its saddle, wrapped in a Fraser plaid. The horses didn’t like it; mine jerked its head, nostrils flaring, as the horse bearing Hugh’s corpse came alongside. Jamie yanked the rein and said something angrily in Gaelic, though, and the beast desisted.

I could feel Jamie rise in the stirrups behind me, looking backward as though counting the remaining members of his band. Then his arm came around my waist, and we set off, on our way north.

We rode all night, with only brief stops for rest. During one of these, sheltering under a horse-chestnut tree, Jamie reached to embrace me, then suddenly stopped.

“What is it?” I said, smiling. “Afraid to kiss your wife in front of your men?”

“No,” he said, proving it, then stepped back, smiling. “No, I was afraid for a moment ye were going to scream and claw my face.” He dabbed gingerly at the marks Mary had left on his cheek.

“Poor thing,” I said, laughing. “Not the welcome you expected, was it?”

“Well, by that time, actually it was,” he said, grinning. He had taken two sausages from one of Murtagh’s strings, and now handed me one. I couldn’t remember when I had last eaten, but it must have been quite some time, for not even my fears of botulism kept the fatty, spiced meat from being delicious.

“What do you mean by that? You thought I wouldn’t recognize you after only a week?”

He shook his head, still smiling, and swallowed the bite of sausage.

“Nay. It’s only, when I got in the house to start, I kent where ye were, more or less, because of the bars on your windows.” He arched one brow. “From the looks of them, ye must have made one hell of an impression on His Grace.”

“I did,” I said shortly, not wanting to think about the Duke. “Go on.”

“Well,” he said, taking another bite and shifting it expertly to his cheek while he talked, “I kent the room, but I needed the key, didn’t I?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “You were going to tell me about that.”

He chewed briefly and swallowed.

“I got it from the housekeeper, but not without trouble.” He rubbed himself tenderly, a few inches below the belt. “From appearances, I’d say the woman’s been waked in her bed a few times before – and didna care for the experience.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, entertained by the mental picture this provoked. “Well, I daresay you came as rare and refreshing fruit to her.”

“I doubt it extremely, Sassenach. She screeched like a banshee and kneed me in the stones, then came altogether too near to braining me wi’ a candle-stick whilst I was doubled up groaning.”

“What did you do?”

“Thumped her a good one – I wasna feeling verra chivalrous just at the moment – and tied her up wi’ the strings to her nightcap. Then I put a towel in her mouth to put a stop to the things she was callin’ me, and searched her room ’til I found the keys.”

“Good work,” I said, something occurring to me, “but how did you know where the housekeeper slept?”

“I didn’t,” he said calmly. “The laundress told me – after I told her who I was, and threatened to gut her and roast her on a spit if she didna tell me what I wanted to know.” He gave me a wry smile. “Like I told ye, Sassenach, sometimes it’s an advantage to be thought a barbarian. I reckon they’ve all heard of Red Jamie Fraser by now.”

“Well, if they hadn’t, they will,” I said. I looked him over, as well as I could in the dim light. “What, didn’t the laundress get a lick in?”

“She pulled my hair,” he said reflectively. “Took a clump of it out by the roots. I’ll tell ye, Sassenach; if ever I feel the need to change my manner of employment, I dinna think I’ll take up attacking women – it’s a bloody hard way to make a living.”

It was beginning to sleet heavily near dawn, but we rode for some time before Ewan Gibson dragged his pony uncertainly to a stop, rose up clumsily in the stirrups to look around, then motioned up the hillside that rose to the left.

Dark as it was, it was impossible to ride the horses uphill. We had to descend to the ground and lead them, foot by muddy, slogging foot, along the nearly invisible track that zigzagged through heather and granite. Dawn was beginning to lighten the sky as we paused for breath at the crest of the hill. The horizon was hidden, thick with clouds, but a dull gray of no apparent source began to replace the darker gray of the night. Now I could at least see the cold streamlets that I sank in, ankle-deep, and avoid the worst of the foot-twisting snags of rock and bramble that we encountered on the way down the hill.

At the bottom was a small corrie, with six houses – though “house” was an overdignified word for the rude structures crouched beneath the larch trees there. The thatched roofs came down within a few feet of the ground, leaving only a bit of the stone walls showing.

Outside one bothy, we came to a halt. Ewan looked at Jamie, hesitating as though lost for direction, then at his nod, ducked and disappeared beneath the low rooftree of the hut. I drew closer to Jamie, putting my hand on his arm.

“This is Hugh Munro’s house,” he said to me, low-voiced. “I’ve brought him home to his wife. The lad’s gone in to tell her.”

I glanced from the dark, low doorway of the hut to the limp, plaid-draped bundle that two of the men were now unstrapping from the horse. I felt a small tremor run through Jamie’s arm. He closed his eyes for a moment, and I saw his lips move; then he stepped forward and held out his arms for the burden. I drew a deep breath, brushed my hair back from my face, and followed him, stooping below the lintel of the door.

It wasn’t as bad as I had feared it might be, though bad enough. The woman, Hugh’s widow, was quiet, accepting Jamie’s soft Gaelic speech of condolence with bowed head, the tears slipping down her face like rain. She reached tentatively for the covering plaid, as though meaning to draw it down, but then her nerve failed, and she stood, one hand resting awkwardly on the curve of the shroud, while the other drew a small child close against her thigh.

There were several children huddled near the fire – Hugh’s stepchildren – and a swaddled mass in the rough cradle nearest the hearth. I felt some small comfort, looking at the baby; at least this much of Hugh was left. Then the comfort was overwhelmed with a cold fear as I looked at the children, grimy faces blending with the shadows. Hugh had been their main support. Ewan was brave and willing, but he was no more than fourteen, and the next eldest child was a girl of twelve or so. How would they manage?

The woman’s face was worn and lined, nearly toothless. I realized with a shock that she could be only a few years older than I was. She nodded toward the single bed, and Jamie laid the body gently on it. He spoke to her again in Gaelic; she shook her head hopelessly, still staring down at the long shape upon her bed.

Jamie knelt down by the bed; bowed his head, and placed one hand on the corpse. His words were soft, but clearly spoken, and even my limited Gaelic could follow them.

“I swear to thee, friend, and may God Almighty bear me witness. For the sake of your love to me, never shall those that are yours go wanting, while I have aught to give.” He knelt unmoving for a long moment, and there was no sound in the cottage but the crackle of the peat on the hearth and the soft patter of rain on the thatch. The wet had darkened Jamie’s bowed head; droplets of moisture shone jewel-like in the folds of his plaid. Then his hand tightened once in final farewell, and he rose.

Jamie bowed to Mrs. Munro and turned to take my arm. Before we could leave, though, the cowhide that hung across the low doorway was thrust aside, and I stood back to make way for Mary Hawkins, followed by Murtagh.

Mary looked both bedraggled and bewildered, a damp plaid clasped around her shoulders and her muddy bedroom slippers protruding under the sodden hem of her nightrobe. Spotting me, she pressed close to me as though grateful for my presence.

“I didn’t w-want to come in,” she whispered to me, glancing shyly at Hugh Munro’s widow, “but Mr. Murtagh insisted.”

Jamie’s brows were raised in inquiry, as Murtagh nodded respectfully to Mrs. Munro and said something to her in Gaelic. The little clansman looked just as he always did, dour and competent, but I thought there was an extra hint of dignity in his demeanor. He carried one of the saddlebags before him, bulging heavily with something. Perhaps a parting gift for Mrs. Munro, I thought.

Murtagh laid the bag on the floor at my feet, then straightened up and looked from me to Mary, to Hugh Munro’s widow, and at last to Jamie, who looked as puzzled as I felt. Having thus assured himself of his audience, Murtagh bowed formally to me, a lock of wet dark hair falling free over his brow.

“I bring ye your vengeance, lady,” he said, as quietly as I’d ever heard him speak. He straightened and inclined his head in turn to Mary and Mrs. Munro. “And justice for the wrong done to ye.”

Mary sneezed, and wiped her nose hastily with a fold of her plaid. She stared at Murtagh, eyes wide and baffled. I gazed down at the bulging saddle-bag, feeling a sudden deep chill that owed nothing to the weather outside. But it was Hugh Munro’s widow who sank to her knees, and with steady hands opened the bag and drew out the head of the Duke of Sandringham.

45 DAMN ALL RANDALLS

It was a torturous trip northward into Scotland. We had to dodge and hide, always afraid of being recognized as Highlanders, unable to buy or beg food, needing to steal small bits from unattended sheds or pluck the few edible roots I could find in the fields.

Slowly, slowly, we made our way north. There was no telling where the Scottish army was by now, except that it lay to the north. With no way of telling where the army was, we decided to make for Edinburgh; there at least there would be news of the campaign. We had been out of touch for several weeks; I knew the relief of Stirling Castle by the English had failed, Jamie knew the Battle of Falkirk had succeeded, ending in victory for the Scots. But what had come after?

When we rode at last into the cobbled gray street of the Royal Mile, Jamie went at once to the army’s headquarters, leaving me to go with Mary to Alex Randall’s quarters. We hurried up the street together, barely speaking, both too afraid of what we might find.

He was there, and I saw Mary’s knees give way as she entered the room and collapsed by his bed. Startled from a doze, he opened his eyes and blinked once, then Alex Randall’s face blazed as though he had received a heavenly visitation.

“Oh, God!” he kept muttering brokenly into her hair. “Oh, God. I thought… oh, Lord, I had prayed… one more sight of you. Just one. Oh, Lord!”

Simply averting my gaze seemed insufficient; I went out onto the landing, and sat on the stairs for half an hour, resting my weary head on my knees.

When it seemed decent to return, I went back into the small room, grown grimy and cheerless again in the weeks of Mary’s absence. I examined him, my hands gentle on the wasted flesh. I was surprised that he had lasted so long; it couldn’t be much longer.

He saw the truth in my face, and nodded, unsurprised.

“I waited,” he said softly, lying back in exhaustion on his pillows. “I hoped… she would come once more. I had no reason… but I prayed. And now it is answered. I shall die in peace now.”

“Alex!” Mary’s cry of anguish burst out of her as though his words had struck her a physical blow, but he smiled and pressed her hand.

“We have known it for a long time, my love,” he whispered to her. “Don’t despair. I will be with you always, watching you, loving you. Don’t cry, my dearest.” She brushed obediently at her pink-washed cheeks, but could do nothing to stem the tears that came streaming down them. Despite her obvious despair, she had never looked so blooming.

“Mrs. Fraser,” Alex said, clearly mustering his strength to ask one more favor. “I must ask… tomorrow… will you come again, and bring your husband? It is important.”

I hesitated for a moment. Whatever Jamie found out, he was going to want to leave Edinburgh immediately, to join the army and find the rest of his men. But surely one more day could make no difference to the outcome of the war – and I could not deny the appeal in the two pairs of eyes that looked at me so hopefully.

“We’ll come,” I said.

“I am a fool,” Jamie grumbled, climbing the steep, cobbled streets to the wynd where Alex Randall had his lodgings. “We should have left yesterday, at once, as soon as we got back your pearls from the pawnbroker! D’ye no ken how far it is to Inverness? And we wi’ little more than nags to get us there?”

“I know,” I said impatiently. “But I promised. And if you’d seen him… well, you will see him in a moment, and then you’ll understand.”

“Mphm.” But he held the street door for me and followed me up the winding stair of the decrepit building without further complaint.

Mary was half-sitting, half-lying on the bed. Still dressed in her tattered traveling clothes, she was holding Alex, cradling him fiercely against her bosom. She must have stayed with him so all night.

Seeing me, he gently freed himself from her grasp, patting her hands as he laid them aside. He propped himself on one elbow, face paler than the linen sheets on which he lay.

“Mrs. Fraser,” he said. He smiled faintly, despite the sheen of unhealthy sweat and the gray pallor that betokened a bad attack.

“It was good of you to come,” he said, gasping a little. He glanced beyond me. “Your husband… he is with you?”

As though in answer, Jamie stepped into the room behind me. Mary, stirred from her misery by the noise of our entry, glanced from me to Jamie, then rose to her feet, laying a hand timidly on his arm.

“I… we… n-need you, Lord Tuarach.” I thought it was the stammer, more than the use of his title, that touched him. Though he was still grim-faced, some of the tension went out of him. He inclined his head courteously toward her.

“I asked your wife to bring you, my lord. I am dying, as you see.” Alex Randall had pushed himself upright, sitting on the edge of the bed. His slender shins gleamed white as bone beneath the frayed hem of his nightshirt. The toes, long, slim, and bloodless, were shadowed with the bluing of poor circulation.

I had seen death often enough before, in all its forms, but this was always the worst – and the best; a man who met death with knowledge and courage, while the healer’s futile arts fell aside. Futile or not, I rummaged through the contents of my case for the digitalin I had made for him. I had several infusions, in varying strengths, a spectrum of brown liquids in glass vials. I chose the darkest vial without hesitation; I could hear his breath bubbling through the water in his lungs.

It wasn’t digitalin, but his purpose that sustained him now, lighting him with a glow as though a candle burned behind the waxy skin of his face. I had seen that a few times before, too; the man – or woman – whose will was strong enough to override for a time the imperatives of the body.

I thought that was perhaps how some ghosts were made; where a will and a purpose had survived, heedless of the frail flesh that fell by the wayside, unable to sustain life long enough. I didn’t much want to be haunted by Alex Randall; that, among other reasons, was why I had made Jamie come with me today.

Jamie himself appeared to be coming to similar conclusions.

“Aye,” he said softly. “I do see. Do ye ask aught of me?”

Alex nodded, closing his eyes briefly. He lifted the vial I handed him and drank, shuddering briefly at the bitter taste. He opened his eyes and smiled at Jamie.

“The indulgence of your presence only. I promise I shall not detain you long. We are waiting for one more person.”

While we waited, I did what I could for Alex Randall, which under the circumstances was not much. The foxglove infusion again, and a bit of camphor to help ease his breathing. He seemed a little better after the administration of such medicine as I had, but placing my homemade stethoscope against the sunken chest, I could hear the labored thud of his heart, interrupted by such frequent flutters and palpitations that I expected it to stop at any moment.

Mary held his hand throughout, and he kept his eyes fixed on her, as though memorizing every line of her face. It seemed almost an intrusion to be in the same room with them.

The door opened, and Jack Randall stood on the threshold. He looked uncomprehendingly at me and Mary for a moment, then his gaze lighted on Jamie and he turned to stone. Jamie met his eyes squarely, then turned, nodding toward the bed.

Seeing that haggard face, Jack Randall crossed the room rapidly and fell on his knees beside the bed.

“Alex!” he said. “My God, Alex…”

“It’s all right,” his brother said. He held Jack’s face between frail hands and smiled at him, trying to reassure him. “It’s all right, Johnny,” he said.

I put a hand under Mary’s elbow, gently urging her off the bed. Whatever Jack Randall might be, he deserved a few last words in privacy with his brother. Stunned with despair, she didn’t resist, but came with me to the far side of the room, where I perched her on a stool. I poured a little water from the ewer and wet my handkerchief. I tried to give it to her to swab her eyes, but she simply sat, clutching it lifelessly. Sighing, I took it and wiped her face, smoothing her hair as much as I could.

There was a small, choked sound from behind that made me glance toward the bed. Jack, still on his knees, had his face buried in his brother’s lap, while Alex stroked his head, holding one of his hands.

“John,” he said. “You’ll know that I do not ask this lightly. But for the sake of your love for me…” He broke off to cough, the effort flushing his cheeks with hectic color.

I felt Jamie’s body stiffen still further, if such a thing were possible. Jonathan Randall stiffened, too, as though he felt the force of Jamie’s eyes upon him, but didn’t look up.

“Alex,” he said quietly. He laid a hand on his younger brother’s shoulder, as though to quiet the cough. “Don’t trouble your mind, Alex. You know you needn’t ask; I’ll do whatever you wish. Is it the – the girl?” He glanced in Mary’s direction, but couldn’t quite bring himself to look at her.

Alex nodded, still coughing.

“It’s all right,” John said. He put both hands on Alex’s shoulders, trying to ease him back on the pillow. “I won’t let her want for anything. Put your mind at rest.”

Jamie looked down at me, eyes wide. I shook my head slowly, feeling the hair prickle from my neck to the base of my spine. Everything made sense now; the bloom on Mary’s cheeks, despite her distress, and her apparent willingness to wed the wealthy Jew of London.

“It isn’t money,” I said. “She’s with child. He wants…” I stopped, clearing my throat, “I think he wants you to marry her.”

Alex nodded, eyes still closed. He breathed heavily for a moment, then opened them, bright pools of hazel, fixed on his brother’s stunned and incomprehending face.

“Yes,” he said. “John… Johnny, I need you to take care of her for me. I want… my child to have the Randall name. You can… give them some position in the world – so much more than I could.” He reached out a hand, groping, and Mary seized it, clutching it to her bosom as though it were a life preserver. He smiled tenderly at her, and stretched up a hand to touch the shiny, dark ringlets that fell by her cheek, hiding her face.

“Mary. I wish… well, you know what I wish, my dear; so many things. And so many things I am sorry for. But I cannot regret the love between us. Having known such joy, I would die content, save for my fear that you might be exposed to shame and disgrace.”

“I don’t care!” Mary burst out fiercely. “I don’t care who knows!”

“But I care for you,” Alex said, softly. He stretched out a hand to his brother, who took it after a moment’s hesitation. Then he brought them together, laying Mary’s hand in Randall’s. Mary’s lay inert, and Jack Randall’s stiff, like a dead fish on a wooden slab, but Alex pressed his hands tightly around the two, pressing them together.

“I give you to each other, my dear ones,” he said softly. He looked from one face to the other, each reflecting the horror of the suggestion, submerged in the overwhelming grief of impending loss.

“But…” For the first time in our acquaintance, I saw Jonathan Randall completely at a loss for words.

“Good.” It was almost a whisper. Alex opened his eyes and let out the breath he had been holding, smiling at his brother. “There is not much time. I shall marry you myself. Now. That is why I asked Mrs. Fraser to bring her husband – if you will be witness with your wife, sir?” He looked up at Jamie, who, after a moment’s stunned immobility, nodded his head like an automation.

I do not believe I have ever seen three people look so entirely wretched.

Alex was so weak that his brother, with a face like stone, had to help him, tying his minister’s high white stock about the pallid throat. Jonathan himself looked little better. Gaunt from illness, the lines in his face were carved so deep that he looked years older than his age, and his eyes peered out from deep sockets like caves of bone. Impeccably attired as always, he looked like a badly made tailor’s dummy, features carelessly hacked from a block of wood.

As for Mary, she sat miserably on the bed, weeping helplessly into the folds of her cloak, hair disheveled and static with electricity. I did what I could for her, straightening her gown and combing out her hair. She sat drearily sniffling, her eyes fixed on Alex.

Bracing himself with a hand on the bureau, Alex groped in the drawer, coming out at last with his large Book of Common Prayer. It was too heavy for him to hold open before him in the normal fashion. He couldn’t stand, but sat heavily on the bed, holding the book open on his knees. He closed his eyes, breathing heavily, and a drop of sweat fell from his face, making a blot on the page.

“Dearly beloved,” Alex began, and I hoped for his own sake, as well as everyone else’s, that he was using the short form of the ceremony.

Mary had stopped crying, but her nose was red and shiny in her white face, and a small snail track showed on her upper lip. Jonathan saw it, and expressionless, pulled a large square of linen from his sleeve and offered it to her silently.

She took it with a faint nod, not looking at him, and carelessly mopped her face.

“I will,” she said, when the time came, as though not caring at all what she said now.

Jack Randall made his promises in a firm voice, but one remote from the scene. It gave me an odd feeling to see a marriage contracted between two people who were quite unaware of each other; the complete attention of both was focused on the man who sat before them, eyes fixed on the pages of his book.

It was done. Congratulations to the bridal pair hardly seemed in order, and there was an awkward silence. Jamie glanced at me questioningly and I shrugged. I had fainted immediately after marrying him, and Mary looked rather as though she meant to follow my example.

The act complete, Alex sat quite still for a moment. He smiled slightly, and looked deliberately round the room, his eyes resting for a moment on each face in turn. Jonathan, Jamie, Mary, and me. I saw the glow in those soft hazel depths as his glance met mine. The candle’s stub grew low, but the last of the wick blazed up, for a moment bright and strong.

His gaze lingered on Mary’s face, then he closed his eyes briefly, as though he could not stand to look upon her, and I could hear the slow, labored rasp of his breathing. The glow of his skin was blanching and fading, the candle guttering.

Without opening his eyes, he reached up a hand, groping blindly. Jonathan grasped it, caught him behind the shoulders and eased him slowly back, onto the pillows. The long hands, smooth as a boy’s, twitched uneasily, whiter than the shirt they lay against.

“Mary.” The blue lips moved in a whisper, and she trapped the nervous hands between her own, holding them still against her bosom.

“I’m here, Alex. Oh, Alex, I’m here!” She bent close to him, murmuring in his ear. The movement forced Jonathan Randall back a bit, so that he stepped away from the bed. He stood, staring expressionlessly down.

The heavy, domed lids lifted once more, only halfway this time, seeking a face and finding it.

“Johnny. So… good to me. Always, Johnny.”

Mary bent over him, the shadow of her fallen hair hiding his face. Jonathan Randall stood, still as one of the stones in a henge, watching his brother and his wife. There was no sound in the room but the whisper of the fire and the soft sobbing of Mary Randall.

I felt a touch on my shoulder, and looked up at Jamie. He nodded in Mary’s direction.

“Stay with her,” he said quietly. “It wilna be long, will it?”

“No.”

He nodded. Then he took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and crossed the room to Jonathan Randall. He took the frozen figure by one arm and turned him gently toward the door.

“Come, man,” he said quietly. “I’ll see ye safe to your quarters.”

The crooked door creaked to as he left, assisting Jack Randall to the place where he would spend his wedding night, alone.

I closed the door of our inn room behind me and leaned against it, exhausted. It was first dark outside, and the watchmen’s cries echoed down the street.

Jamie was by the window, watching for me. He came to me at once, pulling me tight against him before I had even got my cloak off. I sagged against him, grateful for his warmth and solid strength. He scooped me up with an arm beneath my knees and carried me to the window seat.

“Have a bit of a drink, Sassenach,” he urged. “Ye look all in, and no wonder.” He took the flask from the table and mixed something that appeared to be brandy and water without the water.

I shoved a hand tiredly through my hair. It had been just after breakfast when we went to the room in Ladywalk Wynd; now it was past six o’clock. It seemed as though I had been gone for days.

“It wasn’t long, poor chap. It was as though he was only waiting to see her safely taken care of. I sent word to her aunt’s house; the aunt and two cousins came to fetch her. They’ll take care of… him.” I sipped gratefully at the brandy. It burned my throat and the fumes rose inside my head like fog on the moors, but I didn’t care.

“Well,” I said, attempting a smile, “at least we know Frank is safe, after all.”

Jamie glowered down at me, ruddy brows nearly touching each other.

“Damn Frank!” he said ferociously. “Damn all Randalls! Damn Jack Randall, and damn Mary Hawkins Randall, and damn Alex Randall – er, God rest his soul, I mean,” he amended hastily, crossing himself.

“I thought you didn’t begrudge-” I started. He glared at me.

“I lied.”

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me slightly, holding me at arm’s length.

“And damn you, too, Claire Randall Fraser, while I’m at it!” he said. “Damn right I begrudge! I grudge every memory of yours that doesna hold me, and every tear ye’ve shed for another, and every second you’ve spent in another man’s bed! Damn you!” He knocked the brandy glass from my hand – accidentally, I think – pulled me to him and kissed me hard.

He drew back enough to shake me again.

“You’re mine, damn ye, Claire Fraser! Mine, and I wilna share ye, with a man or a memory, or anything whatever, so long as we both shall live. You’ll no mention the man’s name to me again. D’ye hear?” He kissed me fiercely to emphasize the point. “Did ye hear me?” he asked, breaking off.

“Yes,” I said, with some difficulty. “If you’d… stop… shaking me, I might… answer you.”

Rather sheepishly, he released his grip on my shoulders.

“I’m sorry, Sassenach. It’s only… God, why did ye… well, aye, I see why… but did you have to-” I interrupted this incoherent sputtering by putting my hand behind his head and drawing him down to me.

“Yes,” I said firmly, releasing him. “I had to. But it’s over now.” I loosened the ties of my cloak and let it fall back off my shoulders to the floor. He bent to pick it up, but I stopped him.

“Jamie,” I said. “I’m tired. Will you take me to bed?”

He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring down at me, eyes sunk deep with tiredness and strain.

“Aye,” he said softly, at last. “Aye, I will.”

He was silent, and rough at the start, the edges of his anger sharpening his love.

“Ooh!” I said, at one point.

“Christ, I’m sorry, mo duinne. I couldna…”

“It’s all right.” I stopped his apologies with my mouth and held him tightly, feeling the wrath ebb away as the tenderness grew between us. He didn’t break away from the kiss, but held himself motionless, gently exploring my lips, the tip of his tongue caressing, barely stroking.

I touched his tongue with my own, and held his face between my hands. He hadn’t shaved since morning, and the faint red stubble rasped pleasantly beneath my fingertips.

He lowered himself and rolled slightly to one side, so as not to crush me with his weight, and we went on, touching all along our lengths, joined in closeness, speaking in silent tongues.

Alive, and one. We are one, and while we love, death will never touch us. “The grave’s a fine and private place/But none, I think, do there embrace.” Alex Randall lay cold in his bed, and Mary Randall alone in hers. But we were here together, and no one and nothing mattered beyond that fact.

He grasped my hips, large hands warm on my skin, and pulled me toward him, and the shudder that went through me went through him, as though we shared one flesh.

I woke in the night, still in his arms, and knew he was not asleep.

“Go back to sleep, mo duinne.” His voice was soft, low and soothing, but with a catch that made me reach up to feel the wetness on his cheeks.

“What is it, love?” I whispered. “Jamie, I do love you.”

“I know it,” he said quietly. “I do know it, my own. Let me tell ye in your sleep how much I love you. For there’s no so much I can be saying to ye while ye wake, but the same poor words, again and again. While ye sleep in my arms, I can say things to ye that would be daft and silly waking, and your dreams will know the truth of them. Go back to sleep, mo duinne.”

I turned my head, enough that my lips brushed the base of his throat, where his pulse beat slow beneath the small three-cornered scar. Then I laid my head upon his chest and gave my dreams up to his keeping.

46 TIMOR MORTIS CONTURBAT ME

There were men and their traces all around, as we made our way north, following the retreat of the Highland army. We passed small groups of men on foot, walking doggedly, heads down against the windy rain. Others lay in the ditches and under the hedgerows, too exhausted to go on. Equipment and weapons had been abandoned along the way; here a wagon lay overturned, its sacks of flour split and ruined in the wet, there a brace of small culverin stood beneath a tree, twin barrels gleaming darkly in the shadows.

The weather had been bad all the way, delaying us. It was April 13, and I rode and walked with a constant, gnawing feeling of dread beneath my heart. Lord George and the clan chieftains, the Prince and his chief advisers – all were at Culloden House, or so we had been told by one of the MacDonalds that we met along the way. He knew little more than that, and we did not detain him; the man stumbled away into the mist, moving like a zombie. Rations had been short when I was captured by the English a month gone; matters had plainly gone from bad to worse. The men we saw moved slowly, many of them staggering with exhaustion and starvation. But they moved stubbornly north, all the same, following their Prince’s orders. Moving toward the place the Scots called Drumossie Moor. Toward Culloden.

At one point, the road became too bad for the faltering ponies. They would have to be led around the outer edge of a small wood, through the wet spring heather, to where the road became passable, a half-mile beyond.

“It will be swifter to walk through the wood,” Jamie told me, taking the reins from my numbed hand. He nodded toward the small grove of pine and oak, where the sweet, cool smell of wet leaves rose from the soaked ground. “D’ye go that way, Sassenach; we’ll meet wi’ ye on the other side.”

I was too tired to argue. Putting one foot in front of the other was a distinct effort, and the effort would undoubtedly be less on the smooth layer of leaves and fallen pine needles in the wood than through the boggy, treacherous heather.

It was quiet in the wood, the whine of the wind softened by the pine boughs overhead. What rain came through the branches pattered lightly on the layers of leathery fallen oak leaves, rustling and crackled, even when wet.

He lay only a few feet from the far edge of the wood, next to a big gray boulder. The pale green lichens of the rock were the same color as his tartan, and its browns blended with the fallen leaves that had drifted half across him. He seemed so much a part of the wood that I might have stumbled over him, had I not been stopped by the patch of brilliant blue.

Soft as velvet, the strange fungus spread its cloak over the naked, cold white limbs. It followed the curve of bone and sinew, sending up small trembling fronds, like the grasses and trees of a forest, invading barren land.

It was an electric, vivid blue, stark and alien. I had never seen it, but had heard of it, from an old soldier I had nursed, who had fought in the trenches of the first world war.

“We called it corpse-candle,” he had told me. “Blue, bright blue. You never see it anywhere but on a battlefield – on dead men.” He had looked up at me, old eyes puzzled beneath the white bandage.

“I always wondered where it lives, between wars.”

In the air, perhaps, its invisible spores waiting to seize an opportunity, I thought. The color was brilliant, incongruous, bright as the woad with which this man’s ancestors had painted themselves before going forth to war.

A breeze passed through the wood, ruffling the man’s hair. It stirred and rose, silky and lifelike. There was a crunch of leaves behind me, and I started convulsively from the trance in which I had stood, staring at the corpse.

Jamie stood beside me, looking down. He said nothing; only took me by the elbow and led me from the wood, leaving the dead man behind, clothed in the saprophytic hues of war and sacrifice.

It was mid-morning of April 15 by the time we came to Culloden House, having pushed ourselves and our ponies unmercifully to reach it. We approached it from the south, coming first through a cluster of outbuildings. There was a stir – almost a frenzy – of men on the road, but the stableyard was curiously deserted.

Jamie dismounted and handed his reins to Murtagh.

“D’ye wait here a moment,” he said. “Something doesna seem quite right here.”

Murtagh glanced at the door of the stables, standing slightly ajar, and nodded. Fergus, mounted behind the clansman, would have followed Jamie, but Murtagh prevented him with a curt word.

Stiff from the ride, I slid off my own horse and followed Jamie, slipping in the mud of the stableyard. There was something odd about the stableyard. Only as I followed him through the door of the stable building did I realize what it was – it was too quiet.

Everything inside was still; the building was cold and dim, without the usual warmth and stir of a stable. Still, the place was not entirely devoid of life; a dark figure stirred in the gloom, too big to be a rat or a fox.

“Who is that?” Jamie said, stepping forward to put me behind him automatically. “Alec? Is it you?”

The figure in the hay raised its head slowly, and the plaid fell back. The Master of Horse of Castle Leoch had but one eye; the other, lost in an accident many years before, was patched with black cloth. Normally, one eye sufficed him; brisk and snapping blue, it was enough to command the obedience of stable-lads and horses, grooms and riders alike.

Now Alec McMahon MacKenzie’s eye was dull as dusty slate. The broad, once vigorous body was curled in upon itself, and the cheeks of his face were sunk with the apathy of starvation.

Knowing the old man suffered from arthritis in damp weather, Jamie squatted beside him to prevent him rising.

“What has been happening?” he asked. “We are newly come; what is happening here?”

It seemed to take Old Alec a long time to absorb the question, assimilate it, and form his reply into words; perhaps it was only the stillness of the empty, shadowed stable that made his words ring hollow when they finally came.

“It has all gone to pot,” he said. “They marched to Nairn two nights ago, and came fleeing back yesterday. His Highness has said they will take a stand on Culloden; Lord George is there now, with what troops he has gathered.”

I couldn’t repress a small moan at the name of Culloden. It was here, then. Despite everything, it had come to pass, and we were here.

A shiver passed through Jamie, as well; I saw the red hairs standing erect on his forearms, but his voice betrayed nothing of the anxiety he must feel.

“The troops – they are ill-provisioned to fight. Does Lord George not realize they must have rest, and food?”

The creaking sound from Old Alec might have been the shade of a laugh.

“What His Lordship knows makes little difference, lad. His Highness has taken command of the army. And His Highness says we shall stand against the English on Drumossie. As for food-” His old-man’s eyebrows were thick and bushy, gone altogether white in the last year, with coarse hairs sprouting from them. One brow raised now, heavily, as though even this small change of expression was an exhaustion. One gnarled hand stirred in his lap, gesturing toward the empty stalls.

“They ate the horses last month,” he said, simply. “There’s been little else, since.”

Jamie stood abruptly, and leaned against the wall, head bowed in shock. I couldn’t see his face, but his body was stiff as the boards of the stable.

“Aye,” he said at last. “Aye. My men – did they have their fair share of the meat? Donas… he was… a good-sized horse.” He spoke quietly, but I saw from the sudden sharpness of Alec’s one-eyed glance that he heard as well as I did the effort that kept Jamie’s voice from breaking.

The old man rose slowly from the hay, crippled body moving with painful deliberation. He set one gnarled hand on Jamie’s shoulder; the arthritic fingers could not close, but the hand rested there, a comforting blunt weight.

“They didna take Donas,” he said quietly. “They kept him – for Prince Tcharlach to ride, on his triumphal return to Edinburgh. O’Sullivan said it wouldna be… fitting… for His Highness to walk.”

Jamie covered his face in his hands and stood shaking against the boards of the empty stall.

“I am a fool,” he said at last, gasping to recover his breath. “Oh, God, I am a fool.” He dropped his hands, showing his face, tears streaking through the grime of travel. He dashed the back of his hand across his cheek, but the moisture continued to overflow from his eyes, as though it were a process quite out of his control.

“The cause is lost, my men are being taken to slaughter, there are dead men rotting in the wood… and I am weeping for a horse! Oh, God,” he whispered, shaking his head. “I am a fool.”

Old Alec heaved a sigh, and his hand slid heavily down Jamie’s arm.

“It’s as well that ye still can, lad,” he said. “I’m past it, myself.”

The old man folded one leg awkwardly at the knee and eased himself down once more. Jamie stood for a moment, looking down at Old Alec. The tears still streamed unchecked down his face, but it was like rain washing over a sheet of polished granite. Then he took my elbow, and turned away without a word.

I looked back at Alec when we reached the stable door. He sat quite still, a dark, hunched shape shawled in his plaid, the one blue eye unseeing as the other.

Men sprawled through the house, worn to exhaustion, seeking oblivion from gnawing hunger and the knowledge of certain and imminent disaster. There were no women here; those chiefs whose womenfolk had accompanied them had sent the ladies safely away – the coming doom cast a long shadow.

Jamie left me with a murmured word outside the door that led to the Prince’s temporary quarters. My presence would help nothing. I walked softly through the house, murmurous with the heavy breathing of sleeping men, the air thick with the dullness of despair.

At the top of the house, I found a small lumber-room. Crowded with junk and discarded furniture, it was otherwise unoccupied. I crept into this warren of oddities, feeling much like a small rodent, seeking refuge from a world in which huge and mysterious forces were let loose to destruction.

There was one small window, filled with the misty gray morning. I rubbed dirt away from one pane with the corner of my cloak, but there was nothing to be seen but the encompassing mist. I leaned my forehead against the cold glass. Somewhere out there was Culloden Field, but I saw nothing but the dim silhouette of my own reflection.

News of the gruesome and mysterious death of the Duke of Sandringham had reached Prince Charles, I knew; we had heard of it from almost everyone we spoke to as we passed to the north and it became safe for us to show ourselves again. What exactly had we done? I wondered. Had we doomed the Jacobite cause for good and all in that one night’s adventure, or had we inadvertently saved Charles Stuart from an English trap? I drew a squeaking finger in a line down the misty glass, chalking up one more thing I would never find out.

It seemed a very long time before I heard a step on the uncarpeted boards of the stair outside my refuge. I came to the door to find Jamie coming onto the landing. One look at his face was enough.

“Alec was right,” he said, without preliminaries. The bones of his face were stark beneath the skin, made prominent by hunger, sharpened by anger. “The troops are moving to Culloden – as they can. They havena slept or eaten in two days, there is no ordnance for the cannon – but they are going.” The anger erupted suddenly and he slammed his fist down on a rickety table. A cascade of small brass dishes from the pile of household rubble woke the echoes of the attic with an ungodly clatter.

With an impatient gesture, he snatched the dirk from his belt and jabbed it violently into the table, where it stood, quivering with the force of the blow.

“The country folk say that if ye see blood on your dirk, it means death.” He drew in his breath with a hiss, fist clenched on the table. “Well, I have seen it! So have they all. They know – Kilmarnock, Lochiel, and the rest. And no bit of good does the seeing of it do!”

He bent his head, hands braced on the table, staring at the dirk. He seemed much too large for the confines of the room, an angry smoldering presence that might break suddenly into flame. Instead, he flung up his hands, and threw himself onto a decrepit settle, where he sat, head buried in his hands.

“Jamie,” I said, and swallowed. I could barely speak the next words, but they had to be said. I had known what news he would bring, and I had thought of what might still be done. “Jamie. There’s only one thing left – only the one possibility.”

His head was bent, forehead resting on his knuckles. He shook his head, not looking at me.

“There is no way,” he said. “He’s bent on it. Murray has tried to turn him, so has Lochiel. Balmerino. Me. But the men are standing on the plain this hour. Cumberland has set out for Drumossie. There is no way.”

The healing arts are powerful ones, and any physician versed in the use of substances that heal knows also the power of those that harm. I had given Colum the cyanide he had not had time to use, and taken back the deadly vial from the table by the bed where his body lay. It was in my box now, the crudely distilled crystals a dull brownish-white, deceptively harmless in appearance.

My mouth was so dry that I couldn’t speak at once. There was a little wine left in my flask; I drank it, the acid taste like bile on my tongue.

“There is one way,” I said. “Only one.”

Jamie’s head stayed sunk in his hands. It had been a long ride, and the shock of Alec’s news had added depression to his tiredness. We had detoured to find his men, or most of them, a miserable, ragged crew, indistinguishable from the skeletal Frasers of Lovat who surrounded them. The interview with Charles was far beyond the last straw.

“Aye?” he said.

I hesitated, but had to speak. The possibility had to be mentioned; whether he – or I – could bring ourselves to it or not.

“It’s Charles Stuart,” I said, at last. “It’s him – everything. The battle, the war – everything depends on him, do you see?”

“Aye?” Jamie was looking up at me now, bloodshot eyes quizzical.

“If he were dead…” I whispered at last.

Jamie’s eyes closed, and the last vestiges of blood drained from his face.

“If he were to die… now. Today. Or tonight. Jamie, without Charles, there’s nothing to fight for. No one to order the men to Culloden. There wouldn’t be a battle.”

The long muscles of his throat rippled briefly as he swallowed. He opened his eyes and stared at me, appalled.

“Christ,” he whispered. “Christ, ye canna mean it.”

My hand closed on the smoky, gold-mounted crystal around my neck.

They had called me to attend the Prince, before Falkirk. O’Sullivan, Tullibardine, and the others. His Highness was ill – an indisposition, they said. I had seen Charles, made him bare his breast and arms, examined his mouth and the whites of his eyes.

It was scurvy, and several of the other diseases of malnutrition. I said as much.

“Nonsense!” said Sheridan, outraged. “His Highness cannot suffer from the yeuk, like a common peasant!”

“He’s been eating like one,” I retorted. “Or rather worse than one.” The “peasants” were forced to eat onions and cabbage, having nothing else. Scorning such poor fare, His Highness and his advisers ate meat – and little else. Looking around the circle of scared, resentful faces, I saw few that didn’t show symptoms of the lack of fresh food. Loose and missing teeth, soft, bleeding gums, the pus-filled, itching follicles of “the yeuk” that so lavishly decorated His Highness’s white skin.

I was loath to surrender any of my precious supply of rose hips and dried berries, but had offered, reluctantly, to make the Prince a tea of them. The offer had been rejected, with a minimum of courtesy, and I understood that Archie Cameron had been summoned, with his bowl of leeches and his lancet, to see whether a letting of the Royal blood would relieve the Royal itch.

“I could do it,” I said. My heart was beating heavily in my chest, making it hard to breathe. “I could mix him a draught. I think I could persuade him to take it.”

“And if he should die upon drinking your medicine? Christ, Claire! They would kill ye on the spot!”

I folded my hands beneath my arms, trying to warm them.

“D-does that matter?” I asked, desperately trying to steady my voice. The truth was that it did. Just at the moment, my own life weighed a good deal more in the balance than did the hundreds I might save. I clenched my fists, shaking with terror, a mouse in the jaws of the trap.

Jamie was at my side in an instant. My legs didn’t work very well; he half-carried me to the broken settle and sat down with me, his arms wrapped tight around me.

“You’ve the courage of a lion, mo duinne,” he murmured in my ear. “Of a bear, a wolf! But you know I willna let ye do it.”

The shivering eased slightly, though I still felt cold, and sick with the horror of what I was saying.

“There might be another way,” I said. “There’s little food, but what there is goes to the Prince. I think it might not be difficult to add something to his dish without being noticed; things are so disorganized.” This was true; all over the house, officers lay sleeping on tables and floors, still clad in their boots, too tired to lay aside their arms. The house was in chaos, with constant comings and goings. It would be a simple matter to distract a servant long enough to add a deadly powder to the evening dish.

The immediate terror had receded slightly, but the awfulness of my suggestion lingered like poison, chilling my own blood. Jamie’s arm tightened briefly around my shoulders, then fell away as he contemplated the situation.

The death of Charles Stuart would not end the matter of the Rising; things had gone much too far for that. Lord George Murray, Balmerino, Kilmarnock, Lochiel, Clanranald – all of us were traitors, lives and property forfeit to the Crown. The Highland army was in tatters; without the figurehead of Charles to rally to, it would dissipate like smoke. The English, terrorized and humiliated at Preston and Falkirk, would not hesitate to pursue the fugitives, seeking to retrieve their lost honor and wash out the insult in blood.

There was little chance that Henry of York, Charles’s pious younger brother, already bound by churchly vows, would take his brother’s place to continue the fight for restoration. There was nothing ahead but catastrophe and wreck, and no possible way to avert it. All that might be salvaged now was the lives of the men who would die on the moor tomorrow.

It was Charles who had chosen to fight at Culloden, Charles whose stubborn, shortsighted autocracy had defied the advice of his own generals and gone to invade England. And whether Sandringham had meant his offer for good or ill, it had died with him. There was no support from the South; such English Jacobites as there were did not rally as expected to the banner of their king. Forced against his will to retreat, Charles had chosen this last stubborn stand, to place ill-armed, exhausted, starving men in a battle line on a rain-soaked moor, to face the wrath of Cumberland’s cannon fire. If Charles Stuart were dead, the battle of Culloden might not take place. One life, against two thousand. One life – but that life a Royal one, and taken not in battle, but in cold blood.

The small room where we sat had a hearth, but a fire had not been lit – there was no fuel. Jamie sat gazing at it as though seeking an answer in invisible flames. Murder. Not only murder, but regicide. Not only murder, but the killing of a sometime friend.

And yet – the clansmen of the Highlands shivered already on the open moor, shifting in their serried ranks as the plan of battle was adjusted, rearranged, reordered, as more men drifted to join them. Among them were the MacKenzies of Leoch, the Frasers of Beauly, four hundred men of Jamie’s blood. And the thirty men of Lallybroch, his own.

His face was blank, immobile as he thought, but the hands laced together on his knee knotted tight with the struggle. The crippled fingers and the straight strove together, twisting. I sat beside him, scarcely daring to breathe, awaiting his decision.

At last the breath went from him in an almost inaudible sigh, and he turned to me, a look of unutterable sadness in his eyes.

“I cannot,” he whispered. His hand touched my face briefly, cupping my cheek. “Would God that I could, Sassenach. I cannot do it.”

The wave of relief that washed through me robbed me of speech, but he saw what I felt, and grasped my hands between his own.

“Oh, God, Jamie, I’m glad of it!” I whispered.

He bowed his head over my hands. I turned my head to lay my cheek against his hair, and froze.

In the doorway, watching me with a look of absolute revulsion, was Dougal MacKenzie.

The last months had aged him; Rupert’s death, the sleepless nights of fruitless argument, the strains of the hard campaign, and now the bitterness of imminent defeat. There were gray hairs in the russet beard, a gray look to his skin, and deep lines in his face that had not been there in November. With a shock, I realized that he looked like his brother, Colum. He had wanted to lead, Dougal MacKenzie. Now he had inherited the chieftainship, and was paying its price.

“Filthy… traitorous… whoring… witch!”

Jamie jerked as though he had been shot, face gone white as the sleet outside. I sprang to my feet, overturning the bench with a clatter that echoed through the room.

Dougal MacKenzie advanced on me slowly, putting aside the folds of his cloak, so that the hilt of his sword was freed to his hand. I hadn’t heard the door behind me open; it must have stood ajar. How long had he been on the other side, listening?

“You,” he said softly. “I should have known it; from the first I saw ye, I should have known.” His eyes were fixed on me, something between horror and fury in the cloudy green depths.

There was a sudden stir in the air beside me; Jamie was there, a hand on my arm, urging me back behind him.

“Dougal,” he said. “It isna what ye think, man. It’s-”

“No?” Dougal cut in. His gaze left me for a second, and I shrank behind Jamie, grateful for the respite.

“Not what I think?” he said, still speaking softly. “I hear the woman urging ye to foul murder – to the murder of your Prince! Not only vile murder, but treason as well! And ye tell me I havena heard it?” He shook his head, the tangled russet curls lank and greasy on his shoulders. Like the rest of us, he was starving; the bones jutted in his face, but his eyes burned from their shadowy orbits.

“I dinna blame ye, lad,” he said. His voice was suddenly weary, and I remembered that he was a man in his fifties. “It isna your fault, Jamie. She’s bewitched ye – anyone can see that.” His mouth twisted as he looked again at me.

“Aye, I ken weel enough how it’s been for ye. She’s worked the same sorcery on me, betimes.” His eyes raked over me, burning. “A murdering, lying slut, would take a man by the cock and lead him to his doom, wi’ her claws sunk deep in his balls. That’s the spell that they lay on ye, lad – she and the other witch. Take ye to their beds and steal the soul from you as ye lie sleeping wi’ your head on their breasts. They take your soul, and eat your manhood, Jamie.”

His tongue darted out and wetted his lips. He was still staring at me, and his hand tightened on the hilt of his sword.

“Stand aside, laddie. I’ll free ye of the sassenach whore.”

Jamie stepped in front of me, momentarily blocking Dougal from my view.

“You’re tired, Dougal,” he said, speaking calmly, soothingly. “Tired, and hearin’ things, man. D’ye go down now. I shall-”

He had no chance to finish. Dougal wasn’t listening to him; the deep-set green eyes were fixed on my face, and the MacKenzie chief had drawn the dirk from its sheath at his waist.

“I shall cut your throat,” he said to me softly. “I should ha’ done it when first I saw ye. It would have saved us all a great grief.”

I wasn’t sure that he wasn’t right, but that didn’t mean I intended to let him remedy the matter. I took three quick steps back, and fetched up hard against the table.

“Get back, man!” Jamie thrust himself before me, holding up a shielding forearm as Dougal advanced on me.

The MacKenzie chieftain shook his head, bull-like, red-rimmed eyes fixed on me.

“She’s mine,” he said hoarsely. “Witch. Traitoress. Step aside, lad. I wouldna harm ye, but by God, if ye shield that woman, I shall kill you, too, foster son or no.”

He lunged past Jamie, grabbing my arm. Exhausted, starved, and aging as he was, he was still a formidable man, and his fingers bit deep into my flesh.

I yelped with pain, and kicked frantically at him as he jerked me toward him. He snatched at my hair and caught it, forcing my head hard back. His breath was hot and sour on my face. I shrieked and struck at him, digging my nails into his cheek in an effort to get free.

The air exploded from his lungs as Jamie’s fist struck him in the ribs, and his grip on my hair tore loose as Jamie’s other fist came down in a numbing blow on the point of his shoulder. Suddenly freed, I fell back against the table, whimpering with shock and pain.

Dougal whirled to face Jamie then, dropping into a fighter’s crouch, the dirk held blade upward.

“Let it be, then,” he said, breathing heavily. He swayed slightly from side to side, shifting his weight as he sought the advantage. “Blood will tell. Ye damned Fraser spawn. Treachery runs in your blood. Come here to me, fox cub. I’ll kill ye quick, for your mother’s sake.”

There was little room for maneuver in the small attic. No room to draw a sword; with his dirk stuck fast in the tabletop, Jamie was effectively unarmed. He matched Dougal’s stance, eyes watchful, fixed on the point of the menacing dirk.

“Put it down, Dougal,” he said. “If ye bear my mother in mind, then listen to me, for her sake!”

The MacKenzie made no answer, but jabbed suddenly, a ripping blow aimed upward.

Jamie dodged aside, dodged again the wide-armed sweep that came from the other side. Jamie had the agility of youth on his side – but Dougal held the knife.

Dougal closed with a rush, and the dirk slid up Jamie’s side, ripping his shirt, scoring a dark line in his flesh. With a hiss of pain, he jerked back, grabbing for Dougal’s wrist, catching it as the blade struck down.

The dull gleam of the blade flashed once, disappeared between the struggling bodies. They strove together, locked like lovers, the air filled with the smell of male sweat and fury. The blade rose again, two hands grappling on its rounded hilt. A shift, and a jerk, a sudden grunt of effort, one of pain. Dougal stepped back, staggering, face congested and pouring sweat, the hilt of the dagger socketed at the base of his throat.

Jamie half-fell, gasping, and leaned against the table. His eyes were dark with shock, and his hair sweat-soaked, the rent edges of his shirt tinged with blood from the scratch.

There was a terrible sound from Dougal, a sound of shock and stifled breath. Jamie caught him as he tottered and fell, Dougal’s weight bringing him to his knees. Dougal’s head lay on Jamie’s shoulder, Jamie’s arms locked around his foster father.

I dropped to my knees beside them, reaching to help, trying to get hold of Dougal. It was too late. The big body went limp, then spasmed, sliding out of Jamie’s grasp. Dougal lay crumpled on the floor, muscles jerking with involuntary contractions, struggling like a fish out of water.

His head was pillowed on Jamie’s thigh. One heave brought his face into view. It was contorted, and dark red, eyes gone to slits. His mouth moved continuously, saying something, talking with great force – but without sound, save the bubbling rasp from his ruined throat.

Jamie’s face was ashen; apparently he could tell what Dougal was saying. He struggled violently, trying to hold the thrashing body still. There was a final spasm, then a dreadful rattling sound, and Dougal MacKenzie lay still, Jamie’s hands clenched tight upon his shoulders, as though to prevent his rising again.

“Blessed Michael defend us!” The hoarse whisper came from the doorway. It was Willie Coulter MacKenzie, one of Dougal’s men. He stared in stupefied horror at the body of his chief. A small puddle of urine was forming under it, creeping out from under the sprawled plaid. The man crossed himself, still staring.

“Willie.” Jamie rose, passing a trembling hand across his face. “Willie.” The man seemed struck dumb. He looked at Jamie in complete bewilderment, mouth open.

“I need one hour, man.” Jamie had a hand on Willie Coulter’s shoulder, easing him into the room. “An hour to see my wife safe. Then I shall come back to answer for this. I give ye my word, on my honor. But I must have an hour free. One hour. Will ye give me one hour, man, before ye speak?”

Willie licked dry lips, looking back and forth between the body of his chief and his chieftain’s nephew, clearly frightened out of his wits. At last he nodded, plainly having no idea what to do, choosing to follow this request because no reasonable alternative presented itself.

“Good.” Jamie swallowed heavily, and wiped his face on his plaid. He patted Willie on the shoulder. “Stay here, man. Pray for his soul” – he nodded toward the still form on the floor, not looking at it – “and for mine.” He leaned past Willie to pry his dirk from the table, then pushed me before him, out the door and down the stairs.

Halfway down, he stopped, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed. He drew deep, ragged breaths, as though he were about to faint, and I put my hands on his chest, alarmed. His heart was beating like a drum, and he was trembling, but after a moment, he drew himself upright, nodded at me, and took my arm.

“I need Murtagh,” he said.

We found the clansman just outside, cowled in his plaid against the sleety rain, sitting in a dry spot beneath the eaves of the house. Fergus was curled up next to him, dozing, tired from the long ride.

Murtagh took one look at Jamie’s face, and rose to his feet, dark and dour, ready for anything.

“I’ve killed Dougal MacKenzie,” Jamie said bluntly, without preliminary.

Murtagh’s face went quite blank for a moment, then his normal expression of wary grimness reasserted itself.

“Aye,” he said. “What’s to do, then?”

Jamie groped in his sporran and brought out a folded paper. His hands shook as he tried to unfold it, and I took it from him, spreading it out under the shelter of the eaves.

“Deed of Sasine” it said, at the top of the sheet. It was a short document, laid out in a few black lines, conveying title of the estate known as Broch Tuarach to one James Jacob Fraser Murray, said property to be held in trust and administered by the said James Murray’s parents, Janet Fraser Murray and Ian Gordon Murray, until the said James Murray’s majority. Jamie’s signature was at the bottom, and there were two blank spaces provided below, each with the word “Witness” written alongside. It was dated 1 July, 1745 – a month before Charles Stuart had launched his rebellion on the shores of Scotland, and made Jamie Fraser a traitor to the Crown.

“I need ye to sign this, you and Claire,” Jamie said, taking the note from me and handing it to Murtagh. “But it means forswearing yourself; I have nay right to ask it.”

Murtagh’s small black eyes scanned the deed quickly. “No,” he said dryly. “No right – nor any need, either.” He nudged Fergus with a foot, and the boy sat bolt upright, blinking.

“Nip into the house and fetch your chief ink and a quill, lad,” Murtagh said. “And quick about it – go!”

Fergus shook his head once to clear it, glanced at Jamie for a confirming nod – and went.

Water was dripping from the eaves down the back of my neck. I shivered and drew the woolen arisaid closer around my shoulders. I wondered when Jamie had written the document. The false date made it seem the property had been transferred before Jamie became a traitor, with his goods and lands subject to seizure – if it was not questioned, the property would pass safely to small Jamie. Jenny’s family at least would be safe, still in possession of land and farmhouse.

Jamie had seen the possible need for this; yet he had not executed the document before we left Lallybroch; he had hoped somehow to return, and claim his own place once again. Now that was impossible, but the estate might still be saved from seizure. There was no one to say when the document had really been signed – save the witnesses, me and Murtagh.

Fergus returned, panting, with a small glass inkpot and a ragged quill. We signed one at a time, leaning against the side of the house, careful to shake the quill first to keep the ink from dripping down. Murtagh went first; his middle name, I saw, was FitzGibbons.

“Will ye have me take it to your sister?” Murtagh asked as I shook the paper carefully to dry it.

Jamie shook his head. The rain made damp, coin-sized splotches on his plaid, and glittered on his lashes like tears.

“No. Fergus will take it.”

“Me?” The boy’s eyes went round with astonishment.

“You, man.” Jamie took the paper from me, folded it, then knelt and tucked it inside Fergus’s shirt.

“This must reach my sister – Madame Murray – without fail. It is worth more than my life, man – or yours.”

Practically breathless with the enormity of the responsibility entrusted to him, Fergus stood up straight, hands clasped over his middle.

“I will not fail you, milord!”

A faint smile crossed Jamie’s lips, and he rested a hand briefly on the smooth cap of Fergus’s hair.

“I know that, man, and I am grateful,” he said. He twisted the ring off his left hand; the cabochon ruby that had belonged to his father. “Here,” he said, handing it to Fergus. “Go to the stables, and show this to the old man ye’ll see there. Tell him I said you are to take Donas. Take the horse, and ride for Lallybroch. Stop for nothing, except as you must, to sleep, and when ye do sleep, hide yourself well.”

Fergus was speechless with alarmed excitement, but Murtagh frowned dubiously at him.

“D’ye think the bairn can manage yon wicked beast?” he said.

“Aye, he can,” Jamie said firmly. Overcome, Fergus stuttered, then sank to his knees and kissed Jamie’s hand fervently. Springing to his feet, he darted away in the direction of the stables, his slight figure disappearing in the mist.

Jamie licked dry lips, and closed his eyes briefly, then turned to Murtagh with decision.

“And you – mo caraidh – I need ye to gather the men.”

Murtagh’s sketchy brows shot up, but he merely nodded.

“Aye,” he said. “And when I have?”

Jamie glanced at me, then back at his godfather. “They’ll be on the moor now, I think, with Young Simon. Just gather them together, in one place. I shall see my wife safe, and then-” He hesitated, then shrugged. “I will find you. Wait my coming.”

Murtagh nodded once more, and turned to go. Then he paused, and turned back to face Jamie. The thin mouth twitched briefly, and he said, “I would ask the one thing of ye, lad – let it be the English. Not your ain folk.”

Jamie flinched slightly, but after a moment, he nodded. Then, without speaking, he held out his arms to the older man. They embraced quickly, fiercely, and Murtagh, too, was gone, in a swirl of ragged tartan.

I was the last bit of business on the agenda.

“Come on, Sassenach,” he said, seizing me by the arm. “We must go.”

No one stopped us; there was so much coming and going by the roads that we were scarcely noticed while we were near the moor. Farther away, when we left the main road, there was no one to see.

Jamie was completely silent, concentrating single-mindedly on the job at hand. I said nothing to him, too occupied with my own shock and dread to wish for conversation.

“I shall see my wife safe.” I hadn’t known what he meant by that, but it became obvious within two hours, when he turned the head of his horse farther south, and the steep green hill called Craigh na Dun came in view.

“No!” I said, when I saw it, and realized where we were headed. “Jamie, no! I won’t go!”

He didn’t answer me, only spurred his horse and galloped ahead, leaving me no option but to follow.

My feelings were in turmoil; beyond the doom of the coming battle and the horror of Dougal’s death, now there was the prospect of the stones. That accursed circle, through which I had come here. Plainly Jamie meant to send me back, back to my own time – if such a thing was possible.

He could mean all he liked, I thought, clenching my jaw as I followed him down the narrow trail through the heather. There was no power on earth that could make me leave him now.

We stood together on the hillside, in the small dooryard of the ruined cottage that stood below the crest of the hill. No one had lived there for years; the local folk said the hill was haunted – a fairy’s dun.

Jamie had half-urged, half-dragged me up the slope, paying no attention to my protests. At the cottage he had stopped, though, and sunk to the ground, chest heaving as he gasped for breath.

“It’s all right,” he said at last. “We have a bit of time now; no one will find us here.”

He sat on the ground, his plaid wrapped around him for warmth. It had stopped raining for the moment, but the wind blew cold from the mountains nearby, where snow still capped the peaks and choked the passes. He let his head fall forward onto his knees, exhausted by the flight.

I sat close by him, huddled within my cloak, and felt his breathing gradually slow as the panic subsided. We sat in silence for a long time, afraid to move from what seemed a precarious perch above the chaos below. Chaos I felt I had somehow helped create.

“Jamie,” I said, at last. I reached out a hand to touch him, but then drew back and let it fall. “Jamie – I’m sorry.”

He continued to look out, into the darkening void of the moor below. For a moment, I thought he hadn’t heard me. He closed his eyes. Then he shook his head very slightly.

“No,” he said softly. “There is no need.”

“But there is.” Grief nearly choked me, but I felt as though I must say it; must tell him that I knew what I had done to him.

“I should have gone back. Jamie – if I had gone, then, when you brought me here from Cranesmuir… maybe then-”

“Aye, maybe,” he interrupted. He swung toward me abruptly, and I could see his eyes fixed on me. There was longing there, and a grief that matched mine, but no anger, no reproach.

He shook his head again.

“No,” he said once more. “I ken what ye mean, mo duinne. But it isna so. Had ye gone then, matters might still have happened as they have. Maybe so, maybe no. Perhaps it would have come sooner. Perhaps differently. Perhaps – just perhaps – not at all. But there are more folk have had a hand in this than we two, and I willna have ye take the guilt of it upon yourself.”

His hand touched my hair, smoothing it out of my eyes. A tear rolled down my cheek, and he caught it on his finger.

“Not that,” I said. I flung a hand out toward the dark, taking in the armies, and Charles, and the starved man in the wood, and the slaughter to come. “Not that. What I did to you.”

He smiled then, with great tenderness, and smoothed his palm across my cheek, warm on my spring-chilled skin.

“Aye? And what have I done to you, Sassenach? Taken ye from your own place, led ye into poverty and outlawry, taken ye through battlefields and risked your life. D’ye hold it against me?”

“You know I don’t.”

He smiled. “Aye, well; neither do I, my Sassenach.” The smile faded from his face as he glanced up at the crest of the hill above us. The stones were invisible, but I could feel the menace of them, close at hand.

“I won’t go, Jamie,” I repeated stubbornly. “I’m staying with you.”

“No.” He shook his head. He spoke gently, but his voice was firm, with no possibility of denial. “I must go back, Claire.”

“Jamie, you can’t!” I clutched his arm urgently. “Jamie, they will have found Dougal by now! Willie Coulter will have told someone.”

“Aye, he will.” He put a hand over my arm and patted it. He had reached his decision on the ride to the hill; I could see it in his shadowed face, resignation and determination mingled. There was grief there, and sadness, too, but those had been put aside; he had no time for mourning now.

“We could try to get away to France,” I said. “Jamie, we must!” But even as I spoke, I knew I could not turn him from the course he had decided on.

“No,” he said again, softly. He turned and lifted a hand, gesturing toward the darkening valley below, the shaded hills beyond. “The country is roused, Sassenach. The ports are closed; O’Brien has been trying for the last three months to bring a ship to rescue the Prince, to take him to safety in France – Dougal told me… before.” A tremor passed over his face, and a sudden spasm of grief knit his brows. He pushed it aside, though, and went on, explaining in a steady voice.

“It’s only the English who are hunting Charles Stuart. It will be the English, and the clans as well, who hunt me. I am a traitor twice over, a rebel and a murderer. Claire…” He paused, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck, then said gently, “Claire, I am a dead man.”

The tears were freezing on my cheeks, leaving icy trails that burned my skin.

“No,” I said again, but to no effect.

“I’m no precisely inconspicuous, ye ken,” he said, trying to make a joke of it as he ran a hand through the rusty locks of his hair. “Red Jamie wouldna get far, I think. But you…” He touched my mouth, tracing the line of my lips. “I can save you, Claire, and I will. That is the most important thing. But then I shall go back – for my men.”

“The men from Lallybroch? But how?”

Jamie frowned, absently fingering the hilt of his sword as he thought.

“I think I can get them away. It will be confused on the moor, wi’ men and horses moving to and fro, and orders shouted and contradicted; battles are verra messy affairs. And even if it’s known by then what I – what I have done,” he continued, with a momentary catch in his voice, “there are none who would stop me then, wi’ the English in sight and the battle about to begin. Aye, I can do it,” he said. His voice had steadied, and his fists clenched at his sides with determination.

“They will follow me without question – God help them, that’s what’s brought them here! Murtagh will have gathered them for me; I shall take them and lead them from the field. If anyone tries to stop me, I shall say that I claim the right to lead my own men in battle; not even Young Simon will deny me that.”

He drew a deep breath, brows knit as he visualized the scene on the battlefield come morning.

“I shall bring them safely away. The field is broad enough, and there are enough men that no one will realize that we havena but moved to a new position. I shall bring them off the moor, and see them set on the road toward Lallybroch.”

He fell silent, as though this were as far as he had thought in his plans.

“And then?” I asked, not wanting to know the answer, but unable to stop myself.

“And then I shall turn back to Culloden,” he said, letting out his breath. He gave me an unsteady smile. “I’m no afraid to die, Sassenach.” His mouth quirked wryly. “Well… not a lot, anyway. But some of the ways of accomplishing the fact…” A brief, involuntary shudder ran through him, but he tried to keep smiling.

“I doubt I should be thought worthy of the services of a true professional, but I expect in such a case, both Monsieur Forez and myself might find it… awkward. I mean, havin’ my heart cut out by someone I’ve shared wine with…”

With a sound of incoherent distress, I flung my arms around him, holding him as tightly as I could.

“It’s all right,” he whispered into my hair. “It’s all right, Sassenach. A musket ball. Maybe a blade. It will be over quickly.”

I knew this was a lie; I had seen enough of battle wounds and the deaths of warriors. All that was true was that it was better than waiting for the hangman’s noose. The terror that had ridden with me from Sandringham’s estate rose now to high tide, choking, drowning me. My ears rang with my own pulsebeat, and my throat closed so tight that I felt I could not breathe.

Then all at once, the fear left me. I could not leave him, and I would not.

“Jamie,” I said, into the folds of his plaid. “I’m going back with you.”

He started back, staring down at me.

“The hell you are!” he said.

“I am.” I felt very calm, with no trace of doubt. “I can make a kilt of my arisaid; there are enough young boys with the army that I can pass for one. You’ve said yourself it will all be confusion. No one will notice.”

“No!” he said. “No, Claire!” His jaw was clenched, and he was glaring at me with a mixture of anger and horror.

“If you’re not afraid, I’m not either,” I said, firming my own jaw. “It will… be over quickly. You said so.” My chin was beginning to quiver, despite my determination. “Jamie – I won’t… I can’t… I bloody won’t live without you, and that’s all!”

He opened his mouth, speechless, then closed it, shaking his head. The light over the mountains was failing, painting the clouds with a dull red glow. At last he reached for me, drew me close and held me.

“D’ye think I don’t know?” he asked softly. “It’s me that has the easy part now. For if ye feel for me as I do for you – then I am asking you to tear out your heart and live without it.” His hand stroked my hair, the roughness of his knuckles catching in the blowing strands.

“But ye must do it, mo duinne. My brave lioness. Ye must.”

“Why?” I demanded, pulling back to look up at him. “When you took me from the witch trial at Cranesmuir – you said then that you would have died with me, you would have gone to the stake with me, had it come to that!”

He grasped my hands, fixing me with a steady blue gaze.

“Aye, I would,” he said. “But I wasna carrying your child.”

The wind had frozen me; it was the cold that made me shake, I told myself. The cold that took my breath away.

“You can’t tell,” I said, at last. “It’s much too soon to be sure.”

He snorted briefly, and a tiny flicker of amusement lit his eyes.

“And me a farmer, too! Sassenach, ye havena been a day late in your courses, in all the time since ye first took me to your bed. Ye havena bled now in forty-six days.”

“You bastard!” I said, outraged. “You counted! In the middle of a bloody war, you counted!”

“Didn’t you?”

“No!” I hadn’t; I had been much too afraid to acknowledge the possibility of the thing I had hoped and prayed for so long, come now so horribly too late.

“Besides,” I went on, trying still to deny the possibility, “that doesn’t mean anything. Starvation could cause that; it often does.”

He lifted one brow, and cupped a broad hand gently beneath my breast.

“Aye, you’re thin enough; but scrawny as ye are, your breasts are full – and the nipples of them gone the color of Champagne grapes. You forget,” he said, “I’ve seen ye so before. I have no doubt – and neither have you.”

I tried to fight down the waves of nausea – so easily attributable to fright and starvation – but I felt the small heaviness, suddenly burning in my womb. I bit my lip hard, but the sickness washed over me.

Jamie let go of my hands, and stood before me, hands at his sides, stark in silhouette against the fading sky.

“Claire,” he said quietly. “Tomorrow I will die. This child… is all that will be left of me – ever. I ask ye, Claire – I beg you – see it safe.”

I stood still, vision blurring, and in that moment, I heard my heart break. It was a small, clean sound, like the snapping of a flower’s stem.

At last I bent my head to him, the wind grieving in my ears.

“Yes,” I whispered. “Yes. I’ll go.”

It was nearly dark. He came behind me and held me, leaning back against him as he looked over my shoulder, out over the valley. The lights of watchfires had begun to spring up, small glowing dots in the far distance. We were silent for a long time, as the evening deepened. It was very quiet on the hill; I could hear nothing but Jamie’s even breathing, each breath a precious sound.

“I will find you,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you – then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest.”

His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.

“Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”

He was slow, and careful; so was I. Each touch, each moment must be savored, remembered – treasured as a talisman against a future empty of him.

I touched each soft hollow, the hidden places of his body. Felt the grace and the strength of each curving bone, the marvel of his firm-knit muscles, drawn lean and flexible across the span of his shoulders, smooth and solid down the length of his back, hard as seasoned oakwood in the columns of his thighs.

Tasted the salty sweat in the hollow of his throat, smelled the warm muskiness of the hair between his legs, the sweetness of the soft, wide mouth, tasting faintly of dried apple and the bitter tang of juniper berries.

“You are so beautiful, my own,” he whispered to me, touching the slipperiness between my legs, the tender skin of my inner thighs.

His head was no more than a dark blur against the white blur of my breasts. The holes in the roof admitted only the faintest light from the overcast sky; the soft grumble of spring thunder muttered constantly in the hills beyond our fragile walls. He was hard in my hand, so stiff with the wanting that my touch made him groan in a need close to pain.

When he could wait no longer, he took me, a knife to its scabbard, and we moved hard together, pressing, wanting, needing so urgently that moment of ultimate joining, and fearing to reach it, for the knowledge that beyond it lay eternal separation.

He brought me again and again to the peaks of sensation, holding back himself, stopping, gasping and shuddering on the brink. Until at last I touched his face, twined my fingers in his hair, pressed him tight and arched my back and hips beneath him, urging, forcing.

“Now,” I said to him, softly. “Now. Come with me, come to me, now. Now!”

He yielded to me, and I to him, despair lending edge to passion, so the echo of our cries seemed to die away slowly, ringing in the darkness of the cold stone hut.

We lay pressed together, unmoving, his weight a heavy blessing, a shield and reassurance. A body so solid, so filled with heat and life; how could it be possible that he would cease to exist within hours?

“Listen,” he said at last, softly. “Do you hear?”

At first I heard nothing but the rushing of the wind, and the trickle of rain, dripping through the holes of the roof. Then I heard it, the steady, slow thump of his heartbeat, pulsing against me, and mine against his, each matching each, in the rhythm of life. The blood coursed through him, and through our fragile link, through me, and back again.

We lay so, warm beneath the makeshift covering of plaid and cloak, on a bed of our clothing, tangled together. Then at last he slipped free, and turning me away from him, cupped his hand across my belly, his breath warm on the nape of my neck.

“Sleep now a bit, mo duinne,” he whispered. “I would sleep once more this way – holding you, holding the babe.”

I had thought I could not sleep, but the pull of exhaustion was too much, and I slipped beneath the surface with scarcely a ripple. Near dawn I woke, Jamie’s arms still around me, and lay watching the imperceptible bloom of night into day, futilely willing back the friendly shelter of the dark.

I rolled to the side and lifted myself to watch him, to see the light touch the bold shape of his face, innocent in sleep, to see the dawning sun touch his hair with flame – for the last time.

A wave of anguish broke through me, so acute that I must have made some sound, for he opened his eyes. He smiled when he saw me, and his eyes searched my face. I knew that he was memorizing my features, as I was his.

“Jamie,” I said. My voice was hoarse with sleep and swallowed tears. “Jamie. I want you to mark me.”

“What?” he said, startled.

The tiny sgian dhu he carried in his stocking was lying within reach, its handle of carved staghorn dark against the piled clothing. I reached for it and handed it to him.

“Cut me,” I said urgently. “Deep enough to leave a scar. I want to take away your touch with me, to have something of you that will stay with me always. I don’t care if it hurts; nothing could hurt more than leaving you. At least when I touch it, wherever I am, I can feel your touch on me.”

His hand was over mine where it rested on the knife’s hilt. After a moment, he squeezed it and nodded. He hesitated for a moment, the razor-sharp blade in his hand, and I offered him my right hand. It was warm beneath our coverings, but his breath came in wisps, visible in the cold air of the room.

He turned my palm upward, examining it carefully, then raised it to his lips. A soft kiss in the well of the palm, then he seized the base of my thumb in a hard, sucking bite. Letting go, he swiftly cut into the numbed flesh. I felt no more than a mild burning sensation, but the blood welled at once. He brought the hand quickly to his mouth again, holding it there until the flow of blood slowed. He bound the wound, now stinging, carefully in a handkerchief, but not before I saw that the cut was in the shape of a small, slightly crooked letter “J.”

I looked up to see that he was holding out the tiny knife to me. I took it, and somewhat hesitantly, took the hand he offered me.

He closed his eyes briefly, and set his lips, but a small grunt of pain escaped him as I pressed the tip of the knife into the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb. The Mount of Venus, a palm-reader had told me; indicator of passion and love.

It was only as I completed the small semicircular cut that I realized he had given me his left hand.

“I should have taken the other,” I said. “Your sword hilt will press on it.”

He smiled faintly.

“I could ask no more than to feel your touch on me in my last fight – wherever it comes.”

Unwrapping the blood-spotted handkerchief, I pressed my wounded hand tightly against his, fingers gripped together. The blood was warm and slick, not yet sticky between our hands.

“Blood of my Blood…” I whispered.

“…and Bone of my Bone,” he answered softly. Neither of us could finish the vow, “so long as we both shall live,” but the unspoken words hung aching between us. Finally he smiled crookedly.

“Longer than that,” he said firmly, and pulled me to him once more.

“Frank,” he said at last, with a sigh. “Well, I leave it to you what ye shall tell him about me. Likely he’ll not want to hear. But if he does, if ye find ye can talk to him of me, as you have to me of him – then tell him… I’m grateful. Tell him I trust him, because I must. And tell him-” His hands tightened suddenly on my arms, and he spoke with a mixture of laughter and absolute sincerity. “Tell him I hate him to his guts and the marrow of his bones!”

We were dressed, and the dawn light had strengthened into day. There was no food, nothing with which to break our fast. Nothing left that must be done… and nothing left to say.

He would have to leave now, to make it to Drumossie Moor in time. This was our final parting, and we could find no way to say goodbye.

At last, he smiled crookedly, bent, and kissed me gently on the lips.

“They say…” he began, and stopped to clear his throat. “They say, in the old days, when a man would go forth to do a great deed – he would find a wisewoman, and ask her to bless him. He would stand looking forth, in the direction he would go, and she would come behind him, to say the words of the prayer over him. When she had finished, he would walk straight out, and not look back, for that was ill-luck to his quest.”

He touched my face once, and turned away, facing the open door. The morning sun streamed in, lighting his hair in a thousand flames. He straightened his shoulders, broad beneath his plaid, and drew a deep breath.

“Bless me, then, wisewoman,” he said softly, “and go.”

I laid a hand on his shoulder, groping for words. Jenny had taught me a few of the ancient Celtic prayers of protection; I tried to summon the words in my mind.

“Jesus, Thou Son of Mary,” I started, speaking hoarsely, “I call upon Thy name; and on the name of John the Apostle beloved, And on the names of all the saints in the red domain, To shield thee in the battle to come…”

I stopped, interrupted by a sound from the hillside below. The sound of voices, and of footsteps.

Jamie froze for a second, shoulder hard beneath my hand, then whirled, pushing me toward the rear of the cottage, where the wall had fallen away.

“That way!” he said. “They are English! Claire, go!”

I ran toward the opening in the wall, heart in my throat, as he turned back to the doorway, hand on his sword. I stopped, just for a moment, for the last sight of him. He turned his head, caught sight of me, and suddenly he was with me, pushing me hard against the wall in an agony of desperation. He gripped me fiercely to him. I could feel his erection pressing into my stomach and the hilt of his dagger dug into my side.

He spoke hoarsely into my hair. “Once more. I must! But quick!” He pushed me against the wall and I scrabbled up my skirts as he raised his kilts. This was not lovemaking; he took me quickly and powerfully and it was over in seconds. The voices were nearer; only a hundred yards away.

He kissed me once more, hard enough to leave the taste of blood in my mouth. “Name him Brian,” he said, “for my father.” With a push, he sent me toward the opening. As I ran for it, I glanced back to see him standing in the middle of the doorway, sword half-drawn, dirk ready in his right hand.

The English, unaware that the cottage was occupied, had not thought to send a scout round the back. The slope behind the cottage was deserted as I dashed across it and into the thicket of alders below the hillcrest.

I pushed my way through the brush and the branches, stumbling over rocks, blinded by tears. Behind me I could hear shouts and the clash of steel from the cottage. My thighs were slick and wet with Jamie’s seed. The crest of the hill seemed never to grow nearer; surely I would spend the rest of my life fighting my way through the strangling trees!

There was a crashing in the brush behind me. Someone had seen me rush from the cottage. I dashed aside the tears and scrabbled upward, groping on all fours as the ground grew steeper. I was in the clear space now, the shelf of granite I remembered. The small dogwood growing out of the cliff was there, and the tumble of small boulders.

I stopped at the edge of the stone circle, looking down, trying desperately to see what was happening. How many soldiers had come to the cottage? Could Jamie break free of them and reach his hobbled horse below? Without it, he would never reach Culloden in time.

All at once, the brush below me parted with a flash of red. An English soldier. I turned, ran gasping across the turf of the circle, and hurled myself through the cleft in the rock.