Prince Across the Water (21 page)

29 THE DEVIL SET LOOSE

Standing for a minute by the open door, I let the cold, damp air clear my head. It was still light, the sleet had stopped, and a slight drizzle was now falling. What Angus Ban said made sense: that we should all go home and work our farms, knowing there would be another day to fight for the Stuart. But who would work Ewan's farm now? And who would be alive and willing when the prince next called us out?

I had no answers, only questions, striking my tired head like grapeshot. So all that was left for me to do was to leave the dim, awful hut with its dead men. I had just checked the dirk in my belt and started out the door when I heard a loud clink behind me. Turning, I saw something glinting on the floor, picking up the bit of light from the open door. Whatever it was lay just below the Keppoch's dangling hand.

I went back inside and picked the thing up—a gold brooch with a painted lion on the top of the arch. The lion had red stone eyes. I knew at once the brooch was the one the Keppoch had been given at Glenfinnan, the brooch with the prince's hair locked inside. It must have shaken loose from the Keppoch's plaid and fallen to the floor.

Should I take the time to pin it back on?

I hesitated, considering. Why had the thing fallen off now and not when we were hurrying away from the battlefield? Why now and not when Angus Ban was in the hut? Why now and not after I had left?

And then suddenly I knew that the reason the brooch had fallen here and now was that God didn't want it taken as plunder by the redcoats. He didn't want Angus Ban to own it. God wanted
me
to have it.

But why?

If I sold the brooch, it would bring enough money to buy my father's farm twenty times over. I could give some of the money to Ewan's ma to help with their farm. I could do what Angus Ban wanted—help out Glenroy. But then wouldn't I be as much a plunderer as the redcoats? Worse even, since I'd be stealing from my own.

The golden brooch lay heavy in my palm. So I would not sell the thing.

And still the question was why.
Why should I have it? Why now?

Then I thought about the prince's hair, set in the brooch behind stone. It might cure me of my fits. I could break the glass easily. But again, I'd be taking the brooch as plunder. I doubted magic would work that way, not healing magic.

I closed my fingers over the thing, and that's when I knew what to do.
I'll take the brooch to the Keppoch's widow
. I smiled at the thought. It might be some comfort to her. She could even buy protection for her family with it. I knew where to find her, even if she hid herself away.

All at once the brooch felt light again. I pinned it to the underside of my plaid, where it sat over my heart. Looking one last time around the hut at the dead men and the dying, I saluted them. Now I was ready to go.

The sky was a mucky yellow from cannon smoke. A stink like rotten eggs filled the air. As I left the hut, I tried hard not to breathe too deeply.

At least the cannon have fallen silent
, I thought, though my ears were still ringing from the long bombardment. I looked back at the battlefield, horrified at what I saw there. The redcoats were going across the field, bayoneting any wounded in their path. Some even stopped to strip the bodies of the dead.

Murderers!
I cursed them under my breath. “Thieves!”

One of the soldiers looked up and I froze, like a deer under the trees, hoping not to be seen. I knew that if they saw me move, they'd turn their guns on me. Trying to calm my thundering heart, I waited until he turned back to his awful work, then I bent low to escape notice, and ran. South and west, my only hope.

So I fled, running across fields and over paths, jumping ditches and squeezing through thorny hedges that ripped at my arms and legs. I passed dead men, dying men, wounded men, and didn't stop for them. I passed swords that had been thrown away, pistols by the roadside, bonnets and cuarans by the score. But I picked up none of them. I just kept running.

Angus Ban had asked me to stay alive and help rebuild the land. He asked me to choose life. I knew my mission now: to return home, to stand up for my own, to deliver the brooch to the widow Keppoch.

As I went along one stretch of track, I raced past a group of cottages where women and children peered fearfully from small windows.

I didn't stop to warn them. They must have already seen the rout. I wasn't the first Highlander to run this way.
Surely
, I thought as I went by them,
surely the English will spare women and children
.

Then, out of sight of the cottages, I was forced to slow down. My right side felt as if I'd been stabbed. Leaning against a stunted birch, I sucked air into my parched throat. What I would have given for a drink of cold water.

A bugle call and the crack of a pistol behind me brought me bolt upright. I'd no time to stop, to feel pain or weakness. I had to run or I
would
be killed. I willed the pain in my side away, and set off again.

I'd been racing along a broad track since passing the cottages. Though it made running easy, it made me a target as well. Turning onto a dirt track off to the left, I followed it over a small rise.

Ahead of me were a score of Highlanders, shuffling along so worn and ragged, they looked like the straw dummies set out in the field to frighten birds.

One of them—a gaunt, solemn man wearing the bonnet of the Glengarry MacDonalds—looked back and saw me. When he realized I was no redcoat, he limped painfully toward me, then clapped a bloodstained hand on my shoulder.

“Tell me, laddie,” he asked quietly, “have ye seen a dark-haired boy a little older than yerself, with a scar on his left cheek? He's my own son, Jamie, and I told him to keep close.”

I shook my head, for I hadn't breath to spare for a real answer.

There was a tear in his eye and his hand slid from my shoulder. “I told him to keep close,” he repeated, as if the only comfort left him was the echo of his own voice.

“Horses!”

The warning cry made us all jump. The exhausted men mustered the last of their strength and broke into a ragged run.

Only the limping man, Jamie's father, didn't flee but turned slowly to face the approaching riders. There were nearly a dozen of them brandishing sabers and pistols.

“Will ye no come?” I pleaded, tugging at the man's threadbare plaid. “Ye might yet find yer boy.”

“Ye go on, laddie,” he answered in a hollow voice. “I'll no find him again in this world.”

I turned and ran off after the others as the hoofbeats grew closer. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw Jamie's father raise empty hands in surrender. But the leading rider leaned from the saddle and sliced clean through his throat with one stroke of the saber.

“Halloo!” whooped his companions as they trampled the corpse into the dirt.

I ran down the path with the fleeing Highlanders and we were like sheep before ravenous wolves. Five or six pistol shots rang out and a bullet smacked into the back of the man nearest me, pitching him headlong to the ground.

Then came a swishing sound and something whipped the bonnet from my head. The shock was enough to fling me down. I rolled over and over until I came to rest at the side of the track with my arms over my head. I lay there, unmoving, hoping I would be taken for dead, hoping none of the savage horses would grind me beneath their hooves.

Let me live
, I prayed.
I want to live
.

Then the pounding noise of the horses passed by and I jumped up and ran into the tangle of trees by the side of the track.

Just when I thought I'd gotten away, I heard a yell behind me, and looked over my shoulder. One of the riders had broken away from his fellows to chase me. The others laughed and left him to his sport.

“Come here, young rebel!” he shouted as he bore down on me. “Come here you bloody Scot, and take your medicine!”

I was crying now, and the world around me grew wavery. Every minute of life was suddenly precious. I lurched sideways into a hollow and, an instant later, a saber split the empty air where I'd just been. As I dropped into cover, I saw that the whole length of the blade was slick with blood. I waited for a sharp pain, but none came.

Not my blood, then
, I thought, then added,
not yet
.

As the horseman passed by, I sucked in air. Cold air into hot lungs.
Dinna let him take ye without a fight
. That sounded like Granda's voice. But he wasn't here. It was just in my head.
Remember, yer a MacDonald
.

I remembered, and swiped the back of my hand across my eyes, clearing them. I saw that I was in a small cavity in the ground, the size and shape of a grave.

“By God and St. Andrew,” I whispered, scrambling out of the hollow and racing across the path, slipping into another dip in the ground, this one a maze of undergrowth, enough to hide me. As if by their own will, my fingers found the handle of my dirk and pulled it from my belt.

Meanwhile, the English dragoon had turned his horse around and was spurring it back toward the hole he thought I was hiding in. The horse's hooves thundered along the ground.

“You'll not escape the king's justice, rebel!” the dragoon called.

But now I was on his blind side, waiting … waiting …

“I'll find you, boy!” he raged. “I'll slice you up like a side of beef!”

The minute he leaned over to scythe at the old hole, his back toward me, I leaped up. Then, with every ounce of strength I had, I rammed my dirk into the horse's neck. The beast reared up with an ear-piercing scream. The trooper was caught completely by surprise. He lost his grip on the reins and was tossed high into the air, then landed on the hard ground with a sickening crack. Maddened by pain, the horse galloped off, the dirk still jammed into its neck.

I stood up and gazed at the fallen dragoon. His sword had gone spinning from his hand to land among a cluster of thorns. I couldn't tell if he were alive or dead, but I'd no desire to get any closer.

“For God and St. Andrew,” I whispered again.

Then I ran off and didn't stop until I came to a copse of trees. Squirming down among the roots of a large oak, I wriggled as far as I could into the damp ground, hiding myself in the earth like a badger.

And there I cried.

It was not girlish crying; not soft, wet weeping. It was manful sobs that howled out of me like the skirling of the pipes. A wonder, with all that howling, that the troopers didn't find me. But they were off after bigger game and I was left alone.

By the time I dared to climb out of my hole, the sun had almost vanished behind the western hills and the sky was stained as red as Drummossie Moor. I brushed off the dirt as best I could, made sure no soldiers were nearby, and started my long trek home.

Along the way I came upon bodies aplenty. Most were Highland men, shot down or cut through as they ran. But there were others. Two farm boys—no older than my brother Andrew—lay together in a pool of blood. They'd clearly only gotten in the way of the cavalrymen's merciless pursuit. A hundred yards further along was an old woman who had fallen into the path of their horses.

Strangest of all, I found the stout merchant who'd come from Inverness to watch the battle. Three deep slashes disfigured his body. He'd hoped to see a fight and had gotten far more than he bargained for. There was no sign of his wife and son, and I prayed they'd been spared. I couldn't wish this slaughter on anyone.

I wandered through the blighted land, feeling as if I were one of the dead myself. And then my head started to ache. With each step the pain grew worse. I felt sick to my stomach and dancing lights flashed before my eyes.

Had I gone through the hell of Culloden without a single fit only to have one here? It seemed so unfair. But I knew I needed to get out of sight before the fit took me completely. Still, it was hard to think with my head buzzing so. Then the buzzing became voices.

“Hoy, who's that there?”

An English voice.

“Catch him, Davy!”

And another.

A trio of redcoats stepped out of the shadow of the trees. Not cavalry but foot soldiers. I saw them as if through a haze. Their boots were spattered with mud, their faces grimed with the smoke of their guns. Even as I swooned, falling to the ground, I could see that their bayonets were sticky with blood.

I thought of getting up again and fighting, but I no longer even had Granda's dirk. And every moment I was sinking further and further toward the dark.

One of the soldiers leaned forward to peer at me through the gathering gloom, his bayonet near my chest.

“Leave him. He's just a boy, not even shaving yet.”

“That makes no odds,” snarled the first. “He's a rebel.”

My arms and legs began to twitch uncontrollably. My jaw clenched and saliva dribbled down the side of my mouth. I tried to ask for mercy, but could only utter a low, wordless grunt.

“Have we found a mad dog?” asked the first soldier.

“Keep back,” his friend warned. “I've seen this sickness before.”

“Can't you see a devil's got hold of him?” said the third.

“All the more reason to kill him, then.”

“Don't be a fool. Kill this kind of madman, you set the devil loose and he takes the one that killed him.”

The soldier standing over me began to shake and the point of the bayonet was wavering, like a blade of grass in the breeze.

“See? See? It's coming over you already.”

“Arrrrgh. Only old women believe those stories.” The point of the bayonet inched closer to my chest. “But like you say, he's just a boy. We'll let the devil keep him.”

They walked away.

Then another figure slipped out of the shadows, one I knew well.

Mairi.

She was all lightness and sparkle. Leaning over me with the faintest of smiles, she brushed my chest exactly at the spot where Keppoch's brooch was concealed.