Prince Across the Water (24 page)

Granda laughed angrily. “Och, woman, the only pain now is life, no death.” But when the redcoats came through, he said nothing as the swords and dirks were collected, for at least they hadn't burned us out again.

Da never entered into any of these arguments with Granda but sat by the hearth, arms crossed over his chest, staring at the fire. More and more often, though, I sat with him and let Granda rage alone. After all, there was no changing him. I understood that now.

Ma had once said, “War's sweet to them that never tried it.” Well, we'd all three tried it, and come to different conclusions. Da was right, though, there was no sense in arguing over it. We all had nightmares of what we'd seen.

But the day came that Da agreed with Granda. A law was passed against the wearing of the tartan and the kilt. A runner sent by Clanranald came through the glen to tell us.

“A fine or even jail if you dinna comply,” he said, after drinking some whiskey and eating a joint of lamb. Ma was furious to have fed him so well for such dire news.

“Are we to be naked then?” Da complained. “For I swear I'll never put on those bloody trousers. They pinch in all the wrong places.”

“And take forever unloosing,” I pointed out, “when yer bowels want to empty.”

Ma clouted me hard on the back of the head for saying that, especially at the table, but Da laughed.

“Duncan's right, ye know. And if they force us to wear trousers, I'll go about in my sark alone.”

Andrew and Sarah crowed with delight, Sarah shouting, “Da's got nae kiltie, Da's got nae kiltie.”

“Alisdair, ye'll do nae such thing,” Ma said, hands on hips.

“Dinna fash yerself, woman,” Da told her, “the sark covers my privates, so why should ye worry?”

But of course he put on the trousers. As did Granda. As did I. However much they chafed, we wore them. As we wore this hard peace. And after a bit we got used to them. After a bit we got used to everything. But we bore each new humiliation like a dull knife in the heart.

32 THE BROOCH

Summer came, heedless of our humiliations and sorrows. The hills pulsed with life. New crops grew steadily in the fields. Glenroy was abustle as if it had never been burned. I worked with Da side by side and hardly ever thought about the war and its aftermath, or the promise I'd made to bring the Keppoch's widow his brooch. Truth was that the family and the village were more important to me than honor, than promises, than war.

I dreamt less and less about Culloden. Life went on, tied to the seasons. Summer was soft, the sun was warm, and only enough rain fell to make the harvest hopeful, and not turn its feet to rot. What I had once despised, I now prized.

We had lost our milk cows, but Maggie gave us two of theirs—Molly and Moog. “Till Ma comes home,” she said. Then she smiled shyly at me. “Or I get married.”

I blushed.

Weeks at a time I spent alone in the shielings, tending the cows, milking, churning the butter. I found I had fewer nightmares there. The quiet was healing. The only sounds were Molly and Moog lowing and birdsong in the bright, pearly mornings: curlews singing their names, a single cuckoo loud and echoing, and a flock of peewits who called over and over to their mates.

In all that time I had but one fit, and that up alone at the shieling, looking out over the Gloaming Pool. It wasn't a long blackout, not like some, and I came through without a single scrape.

Everyone in Glenroy was working so hard, it should have been possible to forget the ills done to us. But like a wound not yet scabbed over, we kept rubbing ourselves raw with stories. I heard them each time I came down from the shieling, carrying my butter and cheese.

I heard about Bonnie Prince Charlie fleeing to the western isles, going off to Skye, and to Lewis. The man who'd told Da the news—when he was off to a market at the foot of the glen—said that the prince had been hoping to find a ship bound for France.

“France!” I said. “I hope he made it.” Then I gave a short laugh that had little mirth in it. “I hope France is far away.” As I spoke, I was staring at Ewan's cottage.

But Da said the bonnie prince hadn't actually gone at all. As we walked into the cottage for dinner, he added, “The English navy's kept him penned in. And kept out any French ships.”

Our cottage was once again cozy, and the stones made it cool, even in the summer heat.

“So where is he?” I asked, sitting and reaching for a bannock. Ma slapped my hand. Grace hadn't been said yet. I smiled at her. “It canna be so easy to keep a prince hidden.”

Granda was all smiles and put a finger to his lips. “He's here.”

“The prince is here?” Andrew asked.

“In our cottage?” asked Sarah.

I laughed. “Well, no
here
!” I pointed to the floor.

“We could invite him …” Sarah said wistfully.
“Ye
could invite him, Duncan. Yer the one who's spoken to him.”

“Ye wouldn't want him here, Sarah,” I said, “Where princes go, trouble follows.”

“To think I'd live to hear a MacDonald say such a thing,” Granda muttered.

Still, Sarah's comment made us all laugh. And from that evening on, whenever someone in the family mentioned the latest story about the prince, one or another of us would cry out, “We could invite him …” and all fall about laughing again. Even Sarah.

The rumors about the prince continued well into August. He was here, he was there, he was behind every gorse bush in the Highlands and dancing nightly at every ball.

Ma said once, “Next he'll be a bogie to frighten the children.”

I didn't tell her that sometimes, in my dreams, he was just that.

Andrew began spending more time up in the shieling with me. He was so eager to be thought a man—though ten is hardly that—he stuck to the chores and soon became better at making cheese and churning butter than I had ever been. So, I turned my thoughts once again to the brooch, thinking that if Andrew could handle my chores, I had time to deliver the treasure to the Keppoch's widow.

I left Andrew watching the cows by himself and took the latest butter and cheese down the hillside to Glenroy. There I found Da hoeing between the neeps.

“That's a goodly crop,” I said, admiring the dark earth as well.

“If the rains keep coming and the craws stay away,” he said. As he spoke, there came a chorus of rooks and crows from the nearby trees.

I saw he'd put up another bird-scare. “Andrew's doing well enough.”

He nodded and kept on at his work lifting the weeds away with his wooden spade.

“I'm away then.”

“To Keppoch House?” He knew.

“Aye.”

He never stopped working, but said, “I'd been wondering when ye'd go. There are still soldiers about.”

“I'm wearing the bloody trousers, Da. They'll never know me for a rebel.”

He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “Keppoch House might not be standing.”

I nodded slowly. The thought had occurred to me. “I know where to find the widow if she's no there.”

He straightened up and looked at me closely. “And where would that be?”

For a minute I thought to keep it hidden from him, but I needed his help finding the place. “At Loch Trieg. In a cave.”

“Loch Trieg.” He mused a moment, then looked up at the threatening sky. “Good fishing there. But it's a full day's walk from the Keppoch's house, due east and then south. Dinna go into the mountains, mind.”

“Thanks, Da.”

“There's high cliffs and plenty of caves. It willna be easy to find the right one.” His mouth was suddenly drawn down.

“I'm sure she'll be at the house.”

“Aye, there's been no word of trouble there.” He forced a smile. “Mind ye be quick about it. A day or two down and another two back. No more. Yer mother will worry otherwise. Besides, there's the harvest to bring in. Andrew's not up to that alone.” He looked away, at the field, at the sky, at the road. Anywhere but at me. I understood. He was afraid to let me go again.

“I'll be back soon.”

“I'd go with ye, son, but …” He stared pointedly at the field of neeps and then beyond, the fields of barley already starting to tuft. They'd been replanted after the soldiers had done their worst. But whether they'd be ready before the heavy rains came, no one knew. “Best say something to yer mother.”

“She willna mind. I'll be quick,” I assured him.

“Be
careful
above all else,” said Da. “There are still redcoats out hunting for Prince Charlie.”

“He'll be safe,” I told Da, “as long as he's among Highland folk.”

He took me by the shoulder. “Dinna be too sure of that. There's a reward of thirty thousand pounds offered for his capture.” His brow made furrows as deep as the ones he was hoeing.
“Thirty thousand!
That's a temptation for any man.”

“Any man that disna value his honor more,” I said.

I went up over the hillside just as the clouds were swept away. There'd be no rain today. I checked behind me that no one was watching. Then I went over to the jumble of rocks and lifted away the stone that disguised the safe. Underneath in the hollow, the brooch lay wrapped in its strip of cloth. I took it out and replaced the stone before unwrapping the brooch. It gleamed in the sunlight and the lion looked at me, defiant as ever with its blazing red eyes.

“We have a journey to make, a promise to keep,” I muttered.

“Ho, there, Duncan!”

I spun around, sticking my arm behind my back to keep the treasure out of sight.

“Granda, what are ye doing here?”

“I'd as well ask ye the same,” Granda said, hobbling up the other side of the hill.

“I came to look for one of the cows that strayed,” I said. “Moog is a roamer.” My fingers tightened around the brooch.

Granda made a great show of peering in every direction. “I dinna see any cows. Of course my old eyes are poorly. Maybe it was a lion ye came for.”

I was so startled, I nearly lost my footing on the rocks.

“It's easy to fall when ye've got yer arm twisted back like that.” Granda chortled.

“I'm just scratching,” I said lamely.

“So it's no the Keppoch's brooch yer hiding behind yer back.” He held out a hand.

I brought the brooch out and let it lie in the flat of my palm, but I didn't give it to him. “How did ye know about it?”

“Och, I could see ye were brewing something up with yer da all those weeks back.”

“But this is a
secret
hiding place.” I sounded like Sarah, my voice close to a whine.

Granda laughed. “That's what yer da thought when he was a wee lad, but I knew about it even then. I used to take a peek and see what he'd hidden there. It usually wasna much—a button, a bit of yarn—but he was only young then.” He paused. “Shortly after ye and yer da went down to Glenroy that time, I had a wee peek. I've been checking the treasure safe every week, whenever ye come down from the shieling.”

He came closer and lowered his face to the brooch until his nose was almost touching it. “Yer da's found better things to hide these days. I suppose the Keppoch gave it to ye at Culloden.”

“In a way.” I shrugged.

“And now yer to take it where it belongs. Ye know where that is, do ye no?” He looked up into my face, his eyes piercing. “To the prince himself.”

“Nay, Granda, I'll be giving it to the widow Keppoch. By rights she should decide what's to be done with it.”

Granda nodded. “That sounds fair-minded to me. But ye better hurry. Ye'll want her to have it while the prince is still about. She can get it to him if he needs it.”

“Ye mean before he's caught?”

“Dinna be daft! I mean before he
escapes
. Every jewel will help buy him a ship's passage to France.” Granda was trembling with his plan. “Ye'll be a hero, lad. A hero!” He was on fire now, I could hear it in his voice. “The English may take our land, our swords, and our plaids, but they willna have our prince. Not if we can help him.” He reached over and closed my hand around the brooch. “So take that brooch to the Keppoch's good lady and she will get it to Charlie's people, who will see him safe out of the German lairdie's hands.”

I wrapped up the brooch and stuffed it under my shirt.

“And before ye leave,” said Granda, “speak to yer da about it. I dinna want to take the blame of yer going this time.”

“I already have.”

He looked surprised, then pleased. He gave me a swift hug. “For God and St. Andrew,” he whispered in my ear.

33 LOCH TRIEG

Ma sent me on the way with a bag of oats, a skin of water, some cheese, a loaf of bread, and Da's hunting knife.

“Be quick,” she said before hugging me.

“As quick as I can,” I said, and kissed her on both cheeks. “Maybe even quicker.”

The journey to Keppoch House took a full two days. The air was full of the sharp smell of wild onion, and the roadside ablaze with purple foxglove. I could see a maze of hoofprints where a herd of deer had crossed the path and a scattering of pointed, black rabbit droppings. The acrid, sour odor of fox lay over all.

As I walked along, the sound of the River Roy rumbling over its old course kept me company. Above me a circling eagle gave its hearty cry. The days were beginning to draw in now, and the nights were coming earlier, which meant I had less time to walk, so I didn't stop to eat what Ma had packed for me. Instead I ate as I went. I'd promised to be quick on this journey and meant to keep that promise.

Oddly, I felt lighter of spirit as I got closer to the Keppoch's house. I hadn't realized it, but the brooch had been a burden. Once I'd delivered it to the widow, I knew I could go back home feeling free, my war truly over.