The Winter Sea

XXIII

THE VILLAGE OF MALPLAQUET stood at the border of Flanders and France, with deep woods to the north and the south. On September 11th, the morning of battle, the French had been firmly dug into those woods and were waiting for first light, and for the attack of the massed Allied forces—the English and Germans and Dutch fighting now with the great Duke of Marlborough.

Dawn had come, and brought a dense mist rolling from the fields into the wood to make grey phantoms of the men who crouched there, waiting, weary from a lack of rations and a night of little sleep. The Allied armies used that mist to hide their movements; when it cleared they started firing, and a short while after that they gave the signal and began the fight in earnest, throwing everything they had against the wood.

It seemed to Moray there were four of them for every one of his own men. The air hung thick with smoke and screams and cannon-fire, the edges of the wood were set ablaze by the artillery, and men on both sides fell beneath the fury of the guns and flashing swords.

He fell himself at midday. The cut across his leg came first, and brought him to his knees so that he scarcely felt the pistol shot that tore him near his heart and knocked him down to lie in leaves and mud among the dying and the dead. He could not move. The pain within his chest was so consuming he could only breathe by concentrating, and although he willed his arms to find the strength to lift him, drag him, anything, they would not answer.

He could hear the sounds of struggle moving past him, leaving him behind—the clash of men and steel, the raw-voiced yells and rush of feet and sound of branches splintering, and further off the thunder on the ground that shook the forest as the cavalry advance of countless horses and their saber-wielding riders started down upon the battlefield beyond.

And some time after that there came a silence that to Moray was more horrible than any sound of war, because it was not truly silence. In the dimness of the shattered wood, where smoke yet rolled across the trampled undergrowth and mingled with the smells of fire and blood, he heard the moans and anguished praying of the fallen. Some men prayed for life and some for death, in languages as varied as their uniforms—the Dutch and Germans and the Scots and French and English tangled side by side, for all men looked alike when they were dying.

To his left there lay a boy who had been dead before he fell and was released from fear and suffering, but on the ground to Moray’s right a soldier in the colors of the Royal Irish regiment was trying now without success to roll upon his side, his grey face sweating with the effort.

Moray told him, low, ‘Keep still.’

The words burned fire within his chest, but somehow he found strength to roll his head to meet the stranger’s wide, uncomprehending eyes.

‘Keep still,’ he said again. ‘Ye’ll bleed to death, and no one will be coming yet awhile.’

He saw the man’s eyes calm, and gain their sense again. A man his own age, and a soldier like himself, for all that they were enemies. It was a trick of fate, thought Moray looking at their uniforms, that they had faced each other on opposing sides—his own brigade was Irish also, though it served the French king and King James, and not Queen Anne.

The stranger lay his head back with a sigh. ‘’Twas useless trying, anyway. I’ve no more feeling in my legs. Are they yet there?’

Impassive, Moray angled his own gaze towards the blood-soaked ground beneath the other’s boots, and answered, ‘Aye.’

The man’s eyes closed a moment, either from the pain or in relief, and then he opened them again as if determined not to drift. ‘You are a Scotsman, like myself. Why do you fight for France?’

There was a pause. Moray was not inclined to talk, but he himself could feel the deadly lure of drowsiness, and knew the conversation would help keep him conscious. Help him stay alive. He said, ‘I fight for James.’

‘For James.’

‘Aye.’

‘I have never met a Jacobite. I thought you all had horns.’ The smile was faint, as though it hurt him, and he coughed. ‘Where do you come from then, in Scotland?’

‘Perthshire.’

‘I am come from Ulster now, but I was born in Scotland, near Kirkcudbright in the Western Shires.’

A breeze had swept by Moray like the memory of a touch. He said, ‘My wife is of the Western Shires.’ He had not spoken yet to any person of his marriage, but from the glimpse he’d had of this man’s wounds he knew that little harm could come of speaking now.

The other soldier in surprise asked, ‘Is she Presbyterian?’

And Moray was not certain how Sophia would herself have met that question, she who claimed to have no faith yet prayed when no one else was watching, so he simply said, ‘She is my wife.’

‘I have no wife.’ The other man was drifting once again. He shook himself and said, ‘My brother did. He was a cooper in Kirkcudbright, and he has a widow and a son who live there still, though he himself did die before the summer. He was all the kin that I had left. If I die here, there will be none to mourn me.’

‘There will be your nephew.’

‘I have never met my nephew, nor his mother.’ And the smile this time was sad enough that Moray felt a stirring of compassion for the man, enough to make him keep the other talking in the hope that it might somehow ease his suffering, if nothing more.

And so the two had lain there through the afternoon and on into the evening, holding death at bay by telling tales to one another of their boyhood days, and of their lives as soldiers, and though Moray had more often listened than he’d talked, he still had done his part. But in the end, as he’d already known, it was no use.

By nightfall there was no one left but him to face the darkness, and the screams that marked the killing and the plunder of the wounded by the soldiers yet alive. He lay as dead and felt the cold creep through him as he fought a battle with delirium. At times he thought he must be truly dead, and then he’d draw a deeper breath so that the pain would tell him otherwise. And once he closed his eyes and for that moment he was back again at Slains, beside Sophia, lying warm against her body in the bed. It was so real he felt her breathing, and he tried to hold her closer but the darkness pulled him back again, and shivering he woke.

Someone was coming.

He could hear the stealthy movement of their legs against the underbrush, and instantly he closed his eyes and made his breaths as shallow as he could. The steps went past him. Stopped. Returned.

And then somebody kneeled and placed a hand against his throat.

A voice called out, ‘This man is yet alive!’

A voice he recognized, and with it came a light so bright that Moray knew he must be dead. His eyes came open cautiously. The woods were still in darkness, but a torch was being held nearby, and by its light he clearly saw the man who bent above him, dark eyes clouded with concern.

The young king’s face was pale and weary, and his own arm had been bandaged, but the pain that showed upon his features was not for himself. He leaned in closer.

‘Colonel Moray, can you hear me?’

It was just a dream, thought Moray, so he answered, ‘Aye, Your Majesty.’

And smiling went to sleep.

He was aware of being carried, and a softer brightness and the taste of something bitter, and of gentle hands that cleaned his wounds and not-so-gentle hands that bound them, while he floated with the pain.

He woke to voices.

Or at least, he thought he woke, though when he heard the voices he was not so certain, for the first belonged to Colonel Graeme, who should not have been there. ‘Aye, I’ll see to it, Your Majesty.’

And the king, who could not possibly have been there, said, ‘My mother will not soon forgive me if he were to die.’

‘He will not die. He’s half a Graeme, and we’re not such easy men to kill.’ A pause, and then, ‘Your arm does bleed.’

‘The devil take my arm!’ There was a sound of movement, and when next the young king spoke his voice was changed, as though he’d turned away. ‘Have not you seen the field? The woods? What is my arm compared to that? Compared to what this man has suffered for my family?’

Very quietly the colonel said, ‘He’d suffer it again, and more, Your Majesty.’

‘I will not have it. Not from him, nor anyone. No crown is worth what I have witnessed here at Malplaquet. What is a crown?’ His words were harsh. ‘A bit of metal set with stone, and by what right should I command a man to give his life that I may wear it?’

‘By the right God gave ye when he made ye king.’ The colonel said that calmly, stating fact. ‘There’s not a true Scot standing would not do whatever ye did ask, and for no other reason than ye are our king, and we do love ye for it. And ’tis not ourselves alone. I have been told your health was drunk afore the battle in the English camps as well, and they did take pride in your conduct on the battlefield the same as we did. Ye did lead the charge a dozen times upon that field, and I can promise ye, Your Majesty, there’s none among your men would say ye had not earned the right to wear that crown.’

There was silence for a moment. Then more movement, as though both men had come closer to the bed.

The king remarked, ‘If he does live, he will not fight again.’

‘He’ll find another way to serve ye.’

Moray heard no more than that, for he was sliding back into the darkness. When he surfaced next the pain within his chest was agony. He had to clench his teeth to keep from crying out.

‘There, lad,’ said Colonel Graeme, close beside him. Moray felt a cup pressed to his lips. He drank. The brandy burned, but helped to take his focus from the effort of his breathing. He lay back again, and looked around the room. He did not know where they had taken him—it looked to be a private house or cottage, plainly furnished, with bare walls and floors and curtains of white lace that let the daylight through to touch the wooden chair where Colonel Graeme had been sitting with his feet propped on the bed—the dent still showed upon the blankets. Moray’s gaze, disoriented, fell upon the red coat that was hanging from that chair, and he inhaled enough air to speak. ‘Not mine.’

‘What’s that?’ His uncle looked round, saw the coat, and turned back with a soothing nod. ‘Oh aye, I ken it’s not yours, lad. We took it off the soldier lying next to ye and used it as a blanket when we brought ye from the woods. Ye felt like ice, and that poor laddie had no further need of it.’

He knew that coat. Knew every button on it, he had looked at it so long. ‘He was’—he drew in breath to force the words—‘a Scot. McClelland.’

‘Fighting for the wrong side, from his coat. That’s Royal Irish.’ Colonel Graeme raised the brandy cup again, his wise eyes knowing. ‘Fell to talking, did ye? Well, ’tis sometimes what does happen, though I’m fair surprised he had the wit to talk. Ye saw his legs?’ And glancing down, he read the answer in his nephew’s eyes. ‘What did ye speak of ?’

‘Life. His life. He came from’—Christ, it hurt to talk—‘Kirkcudbright.’

‘Oh, aye?’ Colonel Graeme’s tone held interest as he glanced again at Moray’s face. ‘When I was last at Slains, I met a lass who came from near Kirkcudbright. Bonny lassie, so she was. Ye might have met her?’

Only Moray’s eyes moved, locking silently upon his uncle’s face as Colonel Graeme said, ‘I took it on myself to teach her chess, while I was there. She did fair well at it, her only weakness being she did seek to guard her soldiers in the same way she did guard her king, and did not like to see them taken.’ He was smiling faintly at the memory as he offered up the brandy one more time and said, ‘Had I a lass like that, the very thought of her would make me fight to stay among the living.’

Moray meant to make reply, but he was drifting with the pain again and though he did not want to close his eyes he could not help it.

When he opened them the next time he at first thought he was dreaming that first day again, for there were both his uncle and the king in conversation by the window, with their backs toward the bed.

‘Aye, he is much better now, Your Majesty,’ said Colonel Graeme with a nod. ‘I do believe we’ve brought him through the worst of it.’

The king was glad to hear it, and he said so. ‘I do leave for Saint-Germain within the hour, and it will please me to have some good news to carry to my mother.’

Moray’s voice was weaker than he wanted it, but when he called across to them they heard it, all the same. ‘Your Majesty.’

The young king turned, and Moray saw it really was the king. ‘Well, Colonel Moray,’ he said, crossing to the bed. ‘Are you in need of something?’

Speech still hurt him, but he braved it. ‘Nothing but my sword.’

‘You will not need that yet awhile.’

And Colonel Graeme came behind to put the point more bluntly. ‘Lad, your leg was badly wounded and it never will come right again. Ye’ll no more be a soldier.’

And he knew it. Though his mind might yet resist the truth, his body could not hide it. ‘There are other ways to serve.’ He winced as, rolling slightly to his side, he looked beyond his uncle to the king. ‘I’ve not yet lost my eyes and ears, and both are yours if ye see fit to send me back where I can use them.’

The king looked down at Moray, and his youthful face belied the steady wisdom in his eyes. ‘I thank you for your offer, Colonel, but till I am safely back in Scotland I cannot allow you to return there, with so great a price upon your head.’

‘I do not speak of Scotland.’ Moray winced again and had to wait a moment for the stabbing pain within his chest to pass, before he could go on. ‘The man who fell beside me was an Ulsterman. We talked. I do remember all his stories, all the details of his life. He has no kin.’ He fixed his gaze upon the king. ‘I could become him for a time. Move among the Scots in Ulster. Let ye ken their thoughts and plans.’

He saw the thought take hold. The Irish were important to King James’s cause, and knowing how the Irish Protestants were thinking would be valuable. The king said slowly, ‘You would do this?’

‘Aye. If it will help to speed ye home to Scotland.’

Colonel Graeme interrupted. ‘Think, lad. Think, for this is not a move that should be lightly made. If ye would take this path, then none can learn ye are yet living. Till the king’s return, lad, all your kin and all who love ye must believe John Moray died in that infernal wood, and that is what your mother and your brothers and your sisters will be told.’ His grey eyes serious, he added, ‘And your lass.’

The pain wrapped still more tightly round him, and it came not only from his wounds this time but from a deeper place within his chest, so each breath burned. ‘It is for her sake I would do this. So that we may one day be together.’

The king looked down in sympathy. ‘I did not know you had a woman.’

Colonel Graeme, noticing that Moray had begun to fight against the darkness and was past the point of answering, looked down as well and asked permission of the pain-filled eyes before he turned towards the king and said, correcting him, ‘He has a wife.’

The light within the room had altered with the passing of the afternoon, and it no longer reached the bed on which they lay. Sophia touched the black stone on its cord that rested now against the pulse of Moray’s throat.

‘Ye kept me safe.’ His eyes were steady on her face. ‘The thought of ye did keep me safe and living, these past months, just as my uncle said it would.’

She did not want to think about the past few months. She nestled close to him. ‘Your uncle also said that it was by the queen’s design that I was brought here to Kirkcudbright.’

‘Aye. A great romantic, is Queen Mary. I was made to understand that when she learned I had a wife, she thought it only right that I should have ye with me when I went to Ireland, although I do confess I see my uncle’s hand in this, as well. He thought it very hard of me to leave you for so long alone.’

Sophia closed her eyes a moment, trying to decide how best to tell him. ‘I was not alone.’

It was no easy thing to speak of Anna, but she did it, and he listened to her silently, and held her while she cried. And when she’d finished, he stayed silent for a moment longer, looking down at Anna’s small curl tied with ribbon lying soft within his calloused hand.

Sophia asked, ‘Can you forgive me?’

Moray closed his hand around the curl and brought his arm around Sophia, holding her so tightly that no force could have divided them. ‘’Tis I who should be asking that of you.’ His voice was rough against her hair. ‘Ye have done nothing, lass, that needs to be forgiven.’ Then he kissed her very tenderly and eased his hold, and opened up his hand to look again at that dark curl that was the color of his own.

Sophia watched him, and she sensed the struggle in his heart as reason sought to overcome the pain of knowing his own child might never know his face, that she must live so far away from him. So far from his protection.

‘We could send for her,’ Sophia said. ‘Now that you are returned and are alive, she could come with us…’

‘No.’ The word was quiet, but she knew from hearing it how heavily it cost him. ‘No, ye did right to leave her where she was. There will be danger still, in Ireland.’ Regretfully, he closed his hand upon the little curl of hair, then found a smile and trailed his knuckles softly down Sophia’s cheek. ‘I have no right to take ye with me either, but it seems I’ve grown to be a selfish man and cannot let ye go.’

She lay warm in his embrace. ‘You will not have to.’

‘Well, I will for this first while,’ he conceded, ‘else the fine upstanding people of your house may be offended.’

She’d forgotten them; forgotten that the Kerrs would soon be home from kirk to find she was not there. ‘But John—’

He took her face in both his hands and stopped her protest with a kiss of promise. ‘Wait a few days more, and then I will be well enough to come and pay a call, and I can court ye then in public.’ In his eyes she saw a glint of his old humor, gently teasing. ‘Will ye wed me for a second time, or have ye had a chance to see the folly of your choice?’

And it was she this time who kissed him in her turn so that he would not doubt her answer. And she felt his smile against her lips, and in that moment she believed she understood at last what Colonel Graeme had been saying on that day when they had stood together at the great bow window of the drawing room at Slains, and gazed together at the winter sea. For now she knew he had been right—the fields might fall to fallow and the birds might stop their song awhile; the growing things might die and lie in silence under snow, while through it all the cold sea wore its face of storms and death and sunken hopes…and yet unseen beneath the waves a warmer current ran that, in its time, would bring the spring.

It might be that the king would come, and it might be that he would not. It scarcely mattered to her now, for she had Moray back. He’d promised he’d return to her, and so he had. He’d promised her that one day she would stand upon a ship’s deck, and she knew that she would do that too, and he would be beside her. And wherever that ship took them, and however far it carried them from Scotland and from Slains, she would be bound to both by memory.

She would see in dreams the dark red castle walls that rose so proudly from the cliffs, and hear the roaring of the sea below her tower chamber, and Kirsty’s bright voice calling in the morning to awaken her. She’d feel the warming sunlight spilling through the windows of the corner sewing room where she had sat so often with the countess, and the closer warmth of horses dozing upright in their stalls while Hugo kept his faithful watch beside the stable door.

She would no more forget these things than Slains itself would lose its memory of herself and Moray, for she knew that they had left their imprint there as well, and left it deep enough that one day Anna, walking on the beach, might hear the windborne echo of their laughter from the dunes, and glimpse their shadows on the shore, and wonder at the lovers who had left such ghosts behind. She would know little else except that they’d been happy. And in truth, Sophia thought, there would be nothing else to know.

Whatever might become of them, she knew that there was nothing that could rob them of that happiness. For they had lived their winter, and the spring had finally come.