Prince Across the Water (22 page)

“Yer carrying a blessing with ye, Duncan,” she said. “Take good care of it and I promise I'll guard ye on yer way for as long as ye need me.”

The last of the pain and brightness faded and she vanished along with them. I sat up, astonished. Never before had I begun a fit and not fallen away completely into the darkness. Never before had I been awake enough to see and hear all that was happening around me. Never before could I just sit up without help.

I brought the brooch out from under my plaid and stared at it. The lion's jeweled eyes met mine. Its great mouth was open, as though it wanted to speak.

“What are ye saying to me?” I whispered. But I knew without asking. He was saying that my story wasn't at an end. That I had a duty yet to perform, though I never could have guessed what it would turn out to be.

III. PRINCE IN THE HEATHER

May–September 1746

On dark Culloden's field of gore
,

Hark! They shout, “Claymore! Claymore!”

They bravely fight, what can they more?

They die for Royal Charlie
.

—Sound the Pibroch
, traditional song

30 RETURN TO GLENROY

I walked more miles than I could count, for day after day after day. I didn't dare go along a straightaway. Instead, I went over mountains, through the woods, going south and east toward home.

Every night I lay hidden in a ditch or under a bush, dreading the jab of a bayonet in the dark. Often I heard horses go past, or the march of many feet. I heard English voices shouting out commands and English soldiers cursing. I learned to be as still as a rabbit in its hole or a badger in its sett.

Each day as I walked, I remembered: blood, smoke, and the faces of the dead. At night it was the same. When I slept—when I finally slept—I couldn't escape the dreams. Shattered bone, tattered skin, faces eaten away by musket and cannon shot. The dead and dying visited me and wouldn't let me rest.

Now and again I ran into others who'd fled the battle, all of them weak and pale and hollow-eyed. We didn't speak of that day. What could we say? Besides, whenever we heard the sound of horses, or wagons, or even a deer coming over a hill, we scattered like rabbits.

For food I picked berries and dug up roots, drank from streams and from the wells of villages that had been burned out by the red coats. Once in a deserted cottage, I discovered some moldy bread and dry cheese in a turned-over cupboard; in another, a full plate of bannocks on the floor under a table. The bannocks were hard as stones. I ate them anyway, after softening them in water.

It was a strange thing to be a fugitive in my own country, hunted by our masters. More than once I thought of surrender. There were redcoats everywhere. Surely a prisoner would be fed, would have a roof over his head. But as quick as I thought that, I dismissed it. I'd already seen Cumberland's justice—men and women and children all slaughtered, their houses burned, their cattle taken. I only hoped that Glenroy might be spared, being so far away and at the end of a small glen. It was a hard place to find.

I lost my way over and over, stumbling through the heather, and clambering over hills, skirting small lochs and wading through cold streams. When I found a river or loch whose course I could follow, I stayed with it until the sun showed me I was headed awry. Then I'd turned south and west again.

But the call of home is strong, and for every wrong turning, I took another the right way until finally I found a path I recognized, up near our shieling.

I bent down and kissed the ground. “For God and St. Andrew,” I whispered to the new grass. The rest of the way home I could do with my bonnet pulled down over my eyes.

So I survived to return to Glenroy, and there the worst of my fears came true, for I found nothing.

Nothing
.

Our wee cottage—where I'd sat at Granda's knee, listening to his tales; where Ma had stirred the daily porridge pot; where I'd learned my ABCs by writing with a sooty stick on the hearthstone; where Da had taught me songs; where Mairi and Andrew and Sarah and I had slept and eaten and played—the cottage had been destroyed. All that was left was an empty shell of blackened stone. I couldn't go inside, afraid to find my family slaughtered like animals. I put a hand to the wall to steady myself, then turned my back on it and walked toward the byre.

There was little left of it, either, the roof burned off and the door off its hinges. Behind it, the stone dykes that enclosed our garden had been torn down, the acres of crops trampled. I even found our cows, sweet beasts I knew by name—Bessie, Cana, Rona, and Flora Ann—lying along the path between my house and Ewan's.

I started sobbing then. Their throats had been cut, their bodies left to rot. They hadn't even been slaughtered for food. That at least I could have understood. The English soldiers
must
have been hungry. Yet our cows had been butchered simply to destroy our livelihood.

I wandered through the ruin of Glenroy, the smell of burning in my nostrils, a deathly silence filling my ears. There were no people anywhere. Not outside, not inside the cottages, either. I looked.

Where could they be? Had they been taken prisoner? Or had they been marched elsewhere and murdered?

When I finally brought myself back to our broken cottage, I stood for a long moment, still afraid to enter. I who had stood before the guns at Culloden, who had put a knife in a dragoon's horse, who had dodged the English and practically starved on my way home—I was scared stiff.

Finally, I touched the stone where once the door had hinged, drew a deep breath, and went in. My stomach was hollow, there was another hollow in my chest. For a long time I stared down at my feet, afraid of what I would find. I took a deep breath and held it. Then at last I looked up.

No bodies. None.

I let out the breath and a sob at the same time.

I guessed some of the ashes in the broken hearth were the remains of our table and stools. Poking about the sooty debris, I found a little wooden face, charred but still recognizable. I picked it up, then spit on my fingers and scrubbed at the charring. It was all that was left of Sarah's favorite doll, the one Da had carved for her last summer, before the prince came.

Is Sarah still alive?
I could hardly bring myself to think it.

“Is Sarah still alive?” There—I said the words aloud, and they echoed in the hollow that had once been my home.

“Is Sarah weeping for her lost doll, or for her lost brother, or Ma or Da or …”

I couldn't go on that way or I'd go mad. Instead, I knelt down and put the little carved face back where I had found it. To do anything else felt like disturbing the dead.

It was near dark now, and that seemed right. Right that the whole world should be as black as the remains of my old home. I couldn't stay inside those walls. I walked away with misting eyes until I reached the copse of trees where Ewan and I had played at war.

For a moment I thought I could hear our wooden sticks clacketing together, could hear our arguments and our laughter.

Oh, what I'd give to have those days back again
, I thought.

I sank down onto my haunches and rested my head on my folded arms. I began to rock back and forth, humming one of Ma's old lullabies, just as if I were a bairn again. A soft wind accompanied my song.

I'd had enough of being a man.

Suddenly, the undergrowth crackled behind me, and a sense of danger prickled at the nape of my neck.

I reached for my dagger, forgetting that it was long gone. Grabbing up a fallen birch branch instead—better any weapon than none—I jumped up to face my attacker.

I swung the branch with all my might and it landed with a smack in the flat of Da's upraised palm. We gaped at each other in surprise, and I let my makeshift weapon drop to the ground.

Da's face softened into a loose, lopsided smile, the way it did after his third cup of whiskey. He held out his hands tentatively, as if scared to touch me and find I wasn't real.

“Duncan!” he cried. “Oh, Duncan, I was so afraid ye were dead!” He threw his arms around me, pressing me to his chest. I buried my face in his plaid. Anything, anything to hide my tears.

At last he let go and stepped back to look at me. “Yer thinner than a fishing pole,” he said with a weak smile, “and there's enough muck on ye to grow a field of neeps.”

I wiped a sleeve across my eyes. “I thought ye'd be angry that I'd run off.”

Da ruffled my hair. “I used up all my anger on yer granda for letting ye go.”

I looked down at the ground where bluebells were growing all about, and muttered, “It wasna his fault. He couldna stop me.”

“Never mind, lad, never mind,” he said. “All I feel now is joy that yer safe.” He patted my shoulder. “How far have ye been? Where did ye get to?”

“I was at Culloden. On bloody Drummossie Moor.”

Da's smile died and his brow grew ridges. “Oh, God, Duncan, after all I told ye, what could have possessed ye to …” His voice trailed off and when he spoke again, it was to say softly, “Oh, my poor lad, if only ye'd been spared that horror. Some of the men have managed to make it back with such tales …”

“Aye, tales,” I repeated in a careful voice. “Maybe one day I'll be able to tell it properly.”

He was silent.

I was silent.

We were both remembering battles. Different battles, but somehow the same.

Finally, to stop the pictures in my head, I said, “What's happened here in Glenroy? Was it Cumberland's men?”

“Aye, two days past they came. Lucky those red coats of theirs can be seen miles off by a man on a hilltop. Even so, we'd barely enough time to grab what we could before they came marching up the glen with their guns and their torches. There's been some elsewhere as wasna so lucky. They were caught in their beds, sleeping, and woke to find their houses on fire around them and redcoats at the door to shoot them as they ran out.”

“But our folk?”

“All safe. We were lucky, too, for the redcoats came in the daylight. We'd already gotten most of the village cattle to hiding places in the hills. I used the cover of the dark to come down and see what was left.”

“It's no much. And our milk cows …”

“Aye.” He already knew. We passed another silence before he asked, “And Ewan. Is he with ye?”

I swallowed hard.

He looked at me, guessing the worst, but still it had to be said.

“Ewan's dead, Da. Killed at Culloden. A cannonball. I dinna think he suffered, it was so fast.” Ewan's death surely deserved better than my poor words, a ballad, maybe, or a lament on the pipes.

“He and his father both killed for the bloody prince,” Da said, his voice like bile.

“And all the others. Thousands of them. The best of the Highlands. Was it worth it, Da? Was it worth it?” I remembered Angus Ban saying we'd fight another day, and I wondered if I could lift a sword should that day ever come. My chest heaved with grief and shame, and I began to shake.

Da threw his arms around me once more and didn't let go till he felt me stop shaking. “I'll tell Ewan's ma,” he said. “And young Maggie. I'll do it soft.”

“Nae, Da, that's my duty.” My voice was raw. “They'll want to know how it happened, and there's nobody else can tell them but me. He was by my side. He was …”

“As ye think best,” said Da. “But I'll come with ye.”

“Where are they, Ewan's ma and Maggie?”

“Where we all are—up in the hills. Ye know the place, just past the Great Rock ye can see from the back of the byre. It looks like the end of the world up there. The English never thought to climb so high.”

I nodded.

“Let's go now. It will gladden yer mother's heart to see ye well and whole.”

“I'll be happy to bring somebody gladness,” I said, though I felt neither well nor whole nor glad myself.

We came to the great rock, a crag that stood as high as the Keppoch's rooftop. Da whistled a bit of a pibroch and an answering whistle with the next phrase of the song came from somewhere in the trees.

“We've posted watchers,” he said, leading me by the hand. “Though the sassanach are gone on to the next glen, it's better to be careful.”

We rounded the rock and there, backed against the tail end of the crag, was a deep hollow. Campfires had been built into the hollow so the light would be hidden by the curve of the hills and smoke wouldn't be seen against the night sky. The smell of cheese being toasted on sticks over the fire made my stomach jump.

“I've no had a real meal since …” My voice faded as I tried to remember.

“Dinna mind,” said Da. “Ye'll have some tonight.” He pointed. “There!”

Before I could make them out, they'd seen me.

Ma called my name and put her hand to her breast, and Andrew and Sarah raced over to me. I picked Sarah up while Andrew clung to my belt.

“Oof!” I said to Sarah. “Ye've gotten heavy.”

“And ye've gotten dirty,” she answered. “Put me down.” Then she and Andrew started kicking each other and Ma pulled them away.

“So ye ran off to battle with yer cousin, did ye?” she said to me, then touched her apron to her eyes.

“Aye, Ma, and I'm sorry if it frightened ye. But I thought it was my duty.”

“Och, ye thought it was yer pleasure.” She shook her head. “War's sweet to them that never tried it.” Then she hugged me so fiercely, I thought my bones would crack, but I didn't tell her to stop.

“Did ye see the prince there?” she said into my ear.

I thought about that, about the glimpse I'd had of him on his prancing pony, before the battle turned into blood and muck and dying men. “Aye, I saw him, but I didna get close.”

“And what's become of him now, I wonder?” Ma said.