Prince Across the Water (2 page)

Mairi's lower lip trembled. Her green eyes shuttered. Any minute she would start to cry. “I dinna mean the prince of the Scots,” she said. “I mean the prince of the Sidhe …”

Losing patience with her, I said, “This is too important for any of yer games, Mairi. This is men's work. The Stuart has landed. The chief has called. Clan Donald is going to war.”

2 THE KING ACROSS THE WATER

“Men's work? What do ye know of men's work?”

Suddenly I was grabbed from behind and shaken violently from side to side. I wrestled free and spun round to see the familiar face of my cousin Ewan.

“Just testing yer mettle,” he said, stepping out of range of my fist. “Maybe in another year or two ye'll be strong enough to lift a man's sword.”

Ewan was only a year older than me, fourteen last winter, and already he'd been on a cattle raid with his father and the others. Last summer they had brought back six cows from the land of our enemies, the Campbells, a necessary theft with the harvests so bad. Ewan never tired of reminding me of his part in that triumph.

“Dinna ye worry, Duncan,” he would say, patting my head as if I were a
bairn
, a wee child, “yer too young yet for a man's part. Ye must stay here and tend to the milking.”

Milking! Girl's work!

After a whole winter of his head-patting, I'd finally turned and without warning punched him in the nose. We'd fought for a long time, kicking and gouging and rolling in the dirt, until finally we fell apart, too exhausted to go on. After that, he'd stopped calling me a bairn, stopped patting me on the head. But he'd yet to call me a man.

“If ye want to test my mettle again, then step closer,” I challenged him. “I'm sure ye remember my fist.” His nose surely did, for it was still askew from my winter punch.

He took another step away, laughing. “Oh, I willna fight ye, cousin, for I have to save myself for the true king's enemy, the English redcoats and the German upon our throne.” His voice was mocking. “You wouldna deny me that, would ye?”

Mairi whirled round and stared intently at him. Then suddenly she jabbed a thin, wee finger toward him and spoke in a strange crooning voice I'd never heard her use before.

“There's blood on yer head, Ewan, Dougal's son,” she said. “I see it as clear as if ye were wearing a scarlet bonnet.”

A deadly hush fell over the three of us. I felt an awful shiver go up my back as sharp and fast as lightning.

Then Ewan shrugged. He tried to make light of it, but his face was pale and a deep line creased his forehead. He opened his mouth twice before he could speak and then he said, “Ye had best keep a tight hold on her, Duncan. She's so light in the head, she's going to blow away like thistledown.”

I wanted to give him a joke back, but Mairi's voice had frightened me. She may have been a bit daft, but she'd never had the sight before, never seen past the dark curtain of time and into the future. An old woman named Granny Mags who lived in the next village was said to tell fortunes for a coin or a basket of milled rye, but I'd never believed in her power.

“Dinna say such things, Mairi,” I chided her. “It's bad luck.” I took her by the shoulder and led her gently back toward the cottage, where Da was looking grim and Granda elated.

As we got to them, Granda was saying, “Ye know what to do, Alisdair.”

“Aye, I know well enough,” Da responded grimly, his fingers sawing through his beard, “though I dinna have to like it. And the men will like it even less. Catriona is right. The crops are all stunted again, and the children go to bed hungry most nights. The Stuart has picked a bad time to come back.”

Granda gave him a startled look. “I never thought to hear you say such a thing, Alisdair. We Scots have been waiting thirty years for the Stuart's return. I know. I fought back in the '15 for the prince's father.”

I was startled, too. “Da, surely this is a great thing, the prince come home …”

He ignored me and spoke directly to Granda. “Dinna fear, old man, I'll do my duty. I'm a loyal clansman after all, as ye brought me up to be. The MacDonalds hold my heart and hand and I know what we owe our laird. But I still have the right to speak my mind to my family. And I tell ye again, the prince has come at the wrong time.”

I was stunned hearing him say anything against the Stuart prince. It brought me immediate shame. That a MacDonald should speak this way, and my own da. My cheeks went flame red while something awful and cold squatted, like a toad, in my gut.

But Da turned from the two of us and signaled the rest of the village men with a raised fist. “MacDonald! MacDonald!” he cried. Then he turned back and said to Granda, “Honor satisfied?”

Granda spit to one side as if to deny it, though he said nothing more.

But the other men had heard nothing of this exchange, and cried back at Da, “MacDonald! MacDonald!” for Da was the leader of our village since he was married to a woman who was the closest in blood to our chieftain, MacDonald of Keppoch. “MacDonald! MacDonald!”

The sound of the shout touched the hills and sent it back to us. I felt the cry like a strong wind off the mountain's slope.

“And God help us all,” Da muttered. He waited until the men disappeared into their byres and cottages. Then he turned, saying, “Granda, Duncan, Andrew, come. Catriona, ye and the girls stay out here for now.”

We followed him into the cottage. Once inside, Da closed the door behind us. Then he brought over a stool, stood on it, and pulled out a long stone from over the lintel of our door. He handed the stone over to me without a word. It was a heavy grey thing, as big as a child's coffin, and I nearly dropped it. Setting it on the floor carefully, I straightened up with equal care. Da had reached into the hollow space over the lintel and was drawing out a long bundle.

“Mark this well, Duncan,” he said to me. “And ye, too, Andrew. For ye are my boys who will one day soon be men. Ye must know where we keep the family's great weapon of war, the one we use only to fight for our king.” He stepped off the stool, then unwrapped the linen, and there lay a great basket-handled sword. He gripped it and held it up, one-handed. In the firelight, the blade glowed silver and red.

I watched in awe. In all my thirteen years I had known nothing of that hiding place, nothing of that sword.

“So now ye know, boys,” Granda said. “Be proud of yer name and be worthy of that sword. I carried it in the '15 when I fought for our king, and now it's come out of hiding again to do its work once more.”

“I will, Granda,” I said.

“Me, too,” Andrew echoed.

Da wrapped the sword back in its linen shroud and set it on the table. Then he picked up the stone, stepped on the stool, and slotted the stone back in its place. “Now ye can open the door to yer ma and the girls. But not a word to them about the hiding place, hear?”

Andrew and I put our hands over our hearts. “We swear,” we said together.

In what seemed like moments but must have been an hour at least, the men of the village all gathered again at the crossroads, this time in a tight circle, two dozen of them, ready to unwrap their own treasures. Granda was already there.

I stood at the door with Ma and Andrew.

“Come,” Da said to me.

“I want to go, too, Da,” Andrew complained, and Ma cuffed him.

Da stopped and looked over his shoulder, saying, “Andrew, yer time will come, but it isna now.”

We started again for the crossroads, but Andrew complained a second time.

Ma called out, “As the auld cock craws, the young cock learns. Watch what ye teach yer sons, Alisdair MacDonald.”

This time Da turned and I turned with him. He spoke in a low voice I barely recognized. “Scotland has waited thirty years for this day, Catriona. We were children then, ye and I, and didna need to know what the kingdom meant for us. But we know now. And well ye ken I have nae choice in the matter. We owe service to the laird.”

“There's always a choice,” she countered. “We need ye at home. Three bad harvests in a row and the man gone when he's needed most? How will I manage?”

“Ye'll manage,” he said curtly, “ye always do.” He gave me a look.

We turned our backs on her and walked on.

When we got to the crossroads, I looked around the circle of men who I had known all my life. My uncle Dougal, big and dark and as bullheaded as Ewan, who stood by him, both on Da's right hand. The twins Robert and Ronald, who shared a single farm, next to them. Then their father, Andrew, who, it was said, was half their size and twice as hardy. The farrier MacKinnon, who had married into the clan, stood across from us. John the Miller, his son and apprentice Alan, and all the rest, right round to Granda, who stood by my left. Men who had lived around me forever. Men who suddenly seemed bigger and stronger than I could account for.

They were silent, waiting for Da to speak, yet for some reason he was still brooding.

“Why is Duncan here?” Uncle Dougal whispered to Da, though I could hear him. “Ye know he's not able …”

“He's a right to see what we do here,” Granda said. “He's Alisdair's oldest son. His mother is second cousin to the Keppoch.”

Uncle Dougal looked away, shrugging.

And still Da did not speak. Instead, he unwrapped the sword from its linen sheath.

Then one by one, the men shook dust and earth loose from bindings that had been undisturbed for years. What they brought out to show were pistols, muskets, axes, and even a few long basket-handled swords like Da's, a harvest of gunpowder and steel.

I recognized them, for they were as fine as Da's sword. These were not the day-by-day arms for cattle raids and skirmishes. They were weapons for the king's war.

I shivered, though it was not really cold. Overhead a partial moon stared down at us, like a broken shield.

The men passed the weapons around the circle without comment, except for an occasional grunt of approval. The axes I found heavy, unwieldy. The pistols sat easy in my hand. But when I held my father's great sword, I felt a kind of strange power shoot up my right arm. I looked up at Da to tell him, tried to catch his eye, but his face was grimmer than before and he was staring at the dark hills.

I handed the sword back to him, hilt first, and his eyes settled on the blade.

“That'll do,” he said. Then he lifted the sword high overhead. He spoke quietly, but there was as much steel in his voice as in his right hand. “We owe a duty to our clan chief, the Keppoch MacDonald. We owe our loyalty to the King Over the Water. Remember, men, that the king on the throne, German Georgie, is nae our king.”

“He's a usurper,” I blurted out, then bit my lip as Da glared down at me. Suddenly I felt as daft as my sister. I vowed to never say a word more.

Da leaned into the circle of men, his arm still holding the sword high. “That which has been thrust upon us can be thrown off.”

“Aye!” Dougal was the first to cry out in his loud, grave voice, and then the other men echoed him. At the last I shouted it, too, unable to keep quiet. “Aye!”

Da waited for the shouting to be done. “We'll gather back here at dawn,” he said, “and march to join the Keppoch. Every man owes him that duty and by God I'll see us all delivered.” He smiled at them slowly, a thin, humorless smile. “And if God is on our side, we'll be home in time for the harvest.”

As he walked away, Granda said to his back, “Even so, that was well done, Alisdair.”

Da did not look back.

“So, it's come then,” said Ewan with a wolfish grin as we went toward our cottages. He elbowed me sharply. “Nae cattle raid this time.”

“Nae cattle raid this time,” I repeated. And in my deepest of hearts, I was suddenly sure that I would acquit myself well.

3 FIRE AND MARSH

In the morning, I said as much at the table, my porridge spoon held like a dirk in my hand. “I'll do my duty as well as any man.”

“There's nae place for ye on this venture, son,” Da said bluntly. He took a sup of his watery porridge and slowly shook his head. “We are talking war here, nae quick in-out cattle raid. Ye'll soon be old enough for that. But
war
, lad, that's no for ye. Cannon and muskets and trained soldiers. Why, ye can hardly lift the sword.”

“But I'm nearly fourteen,” I protested. “I am well able to fight in a battle line. I've practiced for years, Da.”

“Yer barely thirteen and beardless, and ye have held only a wooden practice sword,” my father countered flatly. “The only battle line ye have fought against is the line of gorse on the high hill.” His voice dropped as if to soften this blow. “Whatever yer age, Duncan, ye know full well why I canna let ye come.”

“But Da …” I said, my voice rising to a whine, “Ewan's going. And we're the only two boys of an age in the village and—”

“Do ye know he's going for a fact?” Da asked.

“He says he is. And if he can go …”

Da shook his head. “I didna want to say this aloud, but ye force me to it, son. I canna have ye fainting in the middle of battle.”

He was right of course, but that only made things worse. I pushed my bowl away. There might as well have been bile in it as porridge for all the appetite I had then.

“Eat,” Ma said softly, her face shadowed by the firelight. “Keep up yer strength, Duncan. Ye'll have to do yer da's work on the farm while he's gone. Likely ye'll also be bringing the harvest in, what there'll be of it this year. And shooting any deer or grouse that come near.”

“Well, if I can shoot deer and grouse and work the farm, why am I no fit enough to march with the men?” I asked sourly. “Besides, I've never been further away from our village than when I bring the cows up to the summer pasture. Why can ye no let me go to see something beyond our door?”