Prince Across the Water (14 page)

“All the way to England?” said Granda.

Da shook his head, but I think he suddenly remembered that he'd sent no word to us, either.

Ma put her hand on his arm. “That's news that travels badly at the best of times. We didna want to add our troubles to yers.”

Da seized her hand so hard, she winced. “What happened? Did she fall sick?”

“She drowned,” Ma managed to say, almost choking on the words.

“In the Gloaming Pool,” said Granda. “She slipped and went under and was caught by the reeds. She didna suffer.”

“How?” Da asked. There was an edge of anger to the word. “Was there nobody to watch her?”

My heart seized on me then. I could scarcely breathe.

“She ran off,” said Granda, beating out each word like a blacksmith pounding on an anvil. “There was nae helping it and nae blame to be parceled out.”

Da slumped back down into his chair and laid his head in his hands. He made a moaning noise that might have been Mairi's name.

“Ye can only chase a butterfly so far,” said Granda, consoling now. “In the end it slips through yer fingers and is gone.”

Fresh tears sprang from Ma's eyes, but she wiped them away quickly with the hem of her apron. She fetched the whiskey jar down again from its shelf and poured more into Da's cup. He downed it in one swallow.

“I thought I was done with death,” he groaned.

Granda beckoned to her to refill the cup quickly and Da gulped that down as well.

“I should never have left,” Da said, sounding hollow.

“Aye, ye had to,” said Granda. “Ye couldna see into the future.”

“That's sure,” Da agreed. “If I had, I wouldna have been half the fool I've been.”

“Ye havena been a fool, Da,” I suddenly put in. “Fighting for the prince—”

“Maybe no a complete fool,” Da interrupted. “Och, well, I suppose it must be told once at least. Then we need speak of it nae more.” He drew himself up and his eyes took on a distant gaze, as if he were staring down a long tunnel into the past.

I had seen other storytellers start that way. But I knew this telling was going to be different. There'd be little to cheer about and less to laugh at. One look at Da's face told me that.

So we all came back to the table and listened to Da, and the tale of the clans marching down to London and back was as black as the Highlander McLean had said, and blacker. For what had been promised the Stuart all along the way—men and weapons and support from France—had never come. The rising up of the English for our king had never happened.

And the long march homeward, Da said, seemed twice as far as the road down south.

“I held to the Keppoch as long as I had a heart to,” he told us, “though others of our clan had already melted away like spring snows. Then in February came the orders to march on to Aberdeen, through weather that was the worst in years. By the time we got there, most of us had icicles …” and his right hand described them as he spoke, “hanging down from our eyebrows and beards. We couldna see more than ten yards ahead.”

Ma put a hand out to touch his. “But you were close to home.”

And
, I thought,
close to Inverness. Where Ewan says the prince is now quartered
.

“Da, did you go on with the army to …”

He interrupted. “There is no army now.” His voice was rough, as if the dust and dirt and ice had corroded it. “Just bands of clansmen scouring the hills for food, and making their ways home. The two weeks before I left, all we were given was a weekly allowance of oatmeal. Ye canna expect to keep an army on that.”

How can he say there's no army?
I wondered.
If I know about Inverness, he must know, too. The prince needs the MacDonalds around him more than ever. And if Da willna go, I'm more than ready to take his place
. But I didn't say this aloud.

“I did hear that Alan's son, Struan, had come home,” Granda admitted, turning to look at Da. “And two more in the next glen.” As if he were finally agreeing.

But I was not ready to give up so easily.
The army
, I thought.
Inverness
, I thought.

“The ones who've come home are the ones with some sense,” said Ma, unable to keep still on the matter. “They know they're needed here to feed their families and keep their children safe.”

“What about Ewan's da?” I asked. “He's not home yet.”

Da lowered his head and it was a long moment before he spoke. “It's the worst news I have to bring that poor family.” His voice quavered. “Dougal's dead. Cut down by an English dragoon at Falkirk. It's his cuaran I wear on my right foot. I asked his forgiveness when I took it. If the dead can give permission, I had his.”

Uncle Dougal dead?
I blurted out before thinking, “Do they know? Have ye told them?”

“I'll tell them in the morning. Let them have one more good night of sleep,” Da said. “God knows they'll not have another.”

“Godspeed, Dougal,” Ma said.

“Godspeed,” we all echoed.

19 BREAKING THE NEWS

The next morning, I went with Da and Ma to break the news to Ewan's family. His ma took it well, only sitting heavily on the hearth bench, asking, “Did ye give him a decent burial at least?”

Da nodded and Ma went over and held her hand.

Maggie put her head in her ma's lap and cried aloud. But Ewan said nothing, slamming out of the cottage.

“Go to him,” my aunt told me. “He's like a bull that's been stung by a burr. There's nae telling which way his pain will make him charge.”

So I went out after him and found him down by the stream where the women do their washing. He was all alone, staring into the rippling water, looking where the April ice had made a rippling white skin against the shore. For a moment I wondered if he could see his father there as I could see Mairi when the world went watery.

He didn't answer when I spoke his name, but when I got closer, he knelt and dashed a handful of icy water over his face to disguise his tears. When he stood up again and faced me, I could see that his ma had been right. It wasn't grief that burned in his eyes now. It was a terrible anger, like lightning seeking to blast a tree. If I didn't take care, I'd be that tree.

“Yer da died as he would have wanted,” I said. How stupid the words sounded, but I couldn't stop myself. “He was in the front line, fighting bravely, Da said.”

“Aye, and yer da's alive and here to tell ye all about it,” Ewan answered sharply.

I ignored the barb in his words. “I wish yer da was home and safe as well.”

“I'll wager ye do, but they're different men, it turns out.”

“This is nae time for us to quarrel.”

“Is that what ye think in yer craven's heart?”

All I felt in my heart at that moment was anger, but I kept myself in check.

Then he added, “Have ye given up on yer prince?”

“How can ye say such a thing?”

“How could yer da do such a thing?” he countered. “Come home when the prince needs him most?”

And for that I had no answer.

“What do ye want to do, then?” I asked.

“Go.”

His answer didn't surprise me. “But surely yer ma will never let ye go now.”

He shrugged.

A cold wind puzzled through the trees. I shivered with it. “Maybe ye should wait a bit for yer ma's sake,” I said.

“My ma has her grief, and I have mine,” Ewan said. “A woman doesna understand these things. I'm going to take my da's place. I'm set on it, Duncan, as sure as stone. And ye must take yers.”

“Yer speaking through pain,” I said. “Ye need to think longer.”

He shook his head. “I've done all the thinking I mean to,” he said. “My father died in battle, Duncan, like a true MacDonald. At least there's glory in that. And honor. I'll no bide here while there's fighting yet to be done.” If anything was stone, it was his face.

“Ye'll never find the way, Ewan,” I told him. “Yer as likely to walk into Butcher Cumberland's camp as into Prince Charlie's.”

“I'll have my dirk drawn if I do. I'm no afraid. Ye can bide here if ye like—with yer
da.”

He didn't call my father by a shameful name, though it was all there in his voice and in the curl of his lip. My fist clenched all by itself and I swung at him then, but it was a clean miss.

Like gunpowder that's felt the touch of a taper, Ewan exploded. His fists pummeled me—my arms, my ribs, my jaw—until I lost balance and toppled to the icy ground.

“None of yer family are fighters,” Ewan crowed. “Why dinna ye crawl off home like ye've been taught!”

Sucking in a deep breath, so cold it made my throat sting, I grabbed his right leg and pulled it out from under him. He fell backward with an angry yell and splashed into the burn. The water did nothing to cool him off and he was on his feet again before I could blink. But this time I was ready, and my own rage was up. I'd not let him speak ill of my father, not without making him pay.

I fended off his first blow and drove him back with a jab of my own.

“When we practiced with yon wooden swords,” Ewan said through gritted teeth, “I thought we were making ourselves ready.”

“So did I, Ewan.” Not the whole truth, I knew.

Suddenly he lunged forward and grabbed me by the front of my sark. With a shift of his weight he threw me to the ground and landed heavily on top of me. I smacked the flat of my hand into his chin and we rolled over and over, grabbing and punching.

“If ye'll no come, then I'll go without ye,” Ewan gasped. “Ye can lie abed and think of me at the prince's side.”

The prince's side
. “Ewan …” I began.

He rammed his elbow into my cheekbone, which ended my sentence, and my head rang like a chapel bell. I grabbed his hair and pulled him over so that we rolled together into the burn, kicking and splashing. The shock of the cold water brought us both up straight.

“Ewan …” I tried again, but his hands were on my throat.

“Two lads can turn the tide of a battle,” he said.

I struggled to prize his hands away but when I did, I found I had no voice with which to agree.

“You know, a grown man will fall from his horse when he tries to skelp a wasp that's buzzing in his face. So we can be wasps, Duncan,” he said. “And sting the redcoats.” Then he thumped me in the belly so hard, we fell free of each other and I retched into the stream.

Ewan stood and glared down at me. “Maybe another man will die for want of somebody to guard his back if our fathers' places go unfilled.”

I clambered to my feet and saw Ewan's fist coming at me. I ducked under it and charged headfirst into his midriff. He staggered back, the wind knocked out of him.

With all the strength I had left, I smacked him hard in the jaw and he reeled back, twisting, about to fall face first into the burn.

“I
agree
with ye, Ewan,” I said to his back, my voice hoarse as a crow's. “So, stop thumping me for a minute and let me agree.”

Ewan neither spoke nor moved and for a moment I was amazed at my triumph. Then an awful thought occurred to me.
Ewan might drown, just like Mairi
.

And again it would be my fault.

“Ewan!” I screamed, grabbing him under the arms and hauling him up onto the bank. He coughed up water, then lay gasping, his legs twitching like the tail of a fish caught in a net. Relieved that he was alive, I flopped down beside him.

“I'm coming with ye,” I heard myself saying. “We swore it—remember?” Besides, if Ewan went to war and never returned, I would always wonder if he died for want of my guarding his back.

Without getting up, Ewan stretched his arm toward me, offering me his hand. I clasped it for a moment, then let it drop. Eventually we recovered our breath and sat side by side, dripping wet, shivering with cold, grinning like fools.

“We'll go right after noon then,” said Ewan. “Put on some dry clothes and then go off as if to do yer chores. Ye can slip away then. Meet me at the copse as soon as ye can.”

“I will.”

“By the time anybody marks that we've gone, it will be too dark to follow. Before they can catch up, we'll be gone for soldiers.”

“Gone for soldiers,” I repeated. The words gave me a queer feeling inside.

20 GONE FOR SOLDIERS

I went quickly back to our cottage, half-excited, half-fearful to be caught out. When I got in the door, ready with explanations, I had to offer none. Ma was still off comforting Ewan's ma. Sarah and Andrew were away somewhere doing chores. Granda was probably grousing at Da in the byre. I had the place to myself. I was glad of that, yet oddly I missed the to-do when the room was filled with family.

First, I knew, I had to get warm. I dried off in front of the fire, peeling off my plaid and sark once they were dry. Then I opened the big chest in the corner, pulling out my other plaid, the plaid stockings, my good sark, and the wool jacket. Then I rooted around until I found my bonnet. If I was going to be a Highland warrior, I wanted to look like one.

Dressing quickly, I turned my attention to food. I packed bread, cheese, oats, and a flask of water, but took only enough to last me a few days, for I wouldn't steal from my family.

Besides
, I thought,
soldiers on their own land should be able to eat well enough
. I'd already forgotten Da's experiences in the snow and the cold.

I thought about taking down my da's sword. He'd hidden it again behind the lintel stone. But I doubted I could get the stone out and onto the ground and back again by myself. Besides, it was
his
sword, not mine.

So I went over to my pallet and, reaching under, pulled out the dagger Granda had given me on the march to Glenfinnan. Thrusting it in my belt, I stood and ran my hands down my chest, finally feeling like a soldier.